Preamble

The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock" Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

Birmingham Corporation Bill,

Bristol Corporation Bill,

Read a Second time, and committed.

Bristol Tramways Bill,

Read a Second time, and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

City of London (Various Powers) Bill, Durham County Water Board Bill,

Read a Second time, and committed.

Jarrow Extension and Improvement,

To be read a Second time To-morrow.

Lambeth Borough Council (Superannuation) Bill,

Leicester Freemen Bill,

Read a Second time, and committed.

London County Council (General Powers) Bill,

To be read a Second time To-morrow.

Metropolitan Railway Bill,

Read a Second time, and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

Neath Corporation Bill,

Read a Second time, and committed.

Newcastle and Gateshead Water Bill,

To be read a Second time To-morrow.

Northampton Corporation Bill,

Read a Second time, and committed.

Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Tramways Bill,

Read a Second time, and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

Padiham Urban District Council Bill,

Read a Second time, and committed.

Port of London and Midland Railway Bill, Railways (North Western and Midland Group) Bill,

To be read a Second time To-morrow.

River Cam Conservancy Bill,

St. Marylebone Borough Council (Superannuation) Bill,

Read a Second time, and committed.

Sheffield Gas Company Bill,

Read a Second time, and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

Shoreditch and other Metropolitan Borough Councils (Superannuation) Bill,

Staffordshire Asylums Bill,

Read a Second time, and committed.

Staffordshire Potteries Water Bill,

To be read a, Second time To-morrow.

Sunderland and South Shields Water Bill,

Read a Second time, and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

Swansea Corporation Bill,

Windsor Gas Bill,

Worthing Corporation Bill,

To be read a Second time To-morrow.

Lanarkshire County Council Order Confirmation Bill,

Read the Third time, and passed.

COMMITTEE OF SELECTION.

Colonel Burn, Captain Charles Craig, Colonel Sir Raymond Greene, Colonel Sir J. W. Greig, Mr. Frederick Hall, Mr. Hinds, Lieut.-Colonel William Nicholson, Sir Samuel Roberts, Mr. Walter Smith, Mr. George Thorne, and Sir Alfred Yeo nominated Members of the Committee of Selection.—[Sir Samuel Roberts.]

TAXES AND IMPOSTS.

Return ordered "showing (1) the rates of duties, taxes, or imports collected by Imperial officers; (2) the quantities or amounts taxed; (3) the gross receipts
derived from each duty; and (4) the net receipts and appropriations thereof in the year ending the 31st day of March, 1921; and (1) the aggregate gross receipts derived from all such duties, taxes, or imposts, under the principal heads of revenue; (2) the aggregate net receipts; (3) the charges of collection; and (4) the produce after deducting these charges in each of the ten years ending the 31st day of March, 1921; and notes to show any changes in the taxes, duties, or imposts, consequent upon the acceptance of the Budget proposals of 1921 (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 238, of Session 1920)."—[Mr. George. Thorne.]

Oral Answers to Questions — SUBSIDIES, GERMANY.

Sir R. CLOUGH: 3.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can state in detail the amount of the subsidies paid in Germany to-day by the German Government towards bread, railways, export freight, and other kindred matters?

Mr. WISE: 43.
asked the Prime Minister what is the amount the German Republic is paying in subsidies, and who receives them?

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Hilton Young): The following figures are taken from documents furnished by the German Government to the Reparation Commission. They are liable to alteration in consequence of fluctuations in the value of the mark. It will be understood that I am not in a position to express any opinion on the reliability of these estimates:



Millions of paper marks



1921–22.
1922–23.


Subsidies on Bread and other foodstuffs
22,311
954


Deficit on Railways
35,631
Nil


Deficit on Postal Administration
4,956
Nil

Mr. WISE: Is there any chance of stopping these subsidies?

Mr. YOUNG: That is a very wide question. It should be addressed to another Member of the House.

Oral Answers to Questions — REFUGEES (BRITISH EXPENDI- TURE).

Sir J. D. REES: 4.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs how many, if any, Armenian, Russian, Czecho-Slovakian or other refugees are at present being supported by the British taxpayer; and when all expenditure under this head will cease?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Cecil Harmsworth): The Armenian refugee camp in Iraq is being closed down and all the Armenians, except a relatively small number, who will be absorbed in Iraq, have been despatched by sea to Armenia, where they will be taken over by the Armenian Government. A grant of £30,000 has been made to keep them from starvation until the harvest. The remaining refugees from Egypt are to be transported at the same time. It is confidently anticipated that this will be the end of the British Government's obligation in this respect and that there will be no further expenditure under this head after the end of the current financial year. No Czecho-Slovak refugees are being supported by His Majesty's Government. The number of Russian refugees at present being maintained from public funds amounts to approximately 4,600. Negotiations are in progress with a view to bring these obligations to an end, but I cannot name any specific date on which expenditure on this head will cease.

Sir J. D. REES: Is this House to understand that on the expenditure of this £30,000 everything ceases, or is there still an indefinite and continuing obligation to be met by the British taxpayer?

Sir FORTESCUE FLANNERY: What is the total annual charge involved?

Mr. HARMSWORTH: With regard to the first supplementary question, the sum of £30,000 applies only to the Armenians repatriated from Iraq, and has no reference to my statement about the Russians. With regard to the second supplementary question, this matter will come up in the course of the Debate on the Supplementary Estimates.

Oral Answers to Questions — EMIGRATION (WOMEN)

Mr. GILBERT: 5.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether his Department make any special inquiries in the case of young women applying for passports for abroad; whether such inquiries include whether the person is going abroad for employment; and whether any warning or advice is given by his Department to all young women who apply for passports for all foreign countries?

Mr. HARMSWORTH: All applicants for passports are required to state the purpose of their journey. Special attention is paid to applications from young women going abroad to take up employment, and inquiries are made and advice given as the circumstances may require. In this matter the Passport Office works in conjunction with the Overseas Settlement Committee, and where necessary consults His Majesty's Consular officers at the place of destination before a passport is granted.

Oral Answers to Questions — CENTRAL AMERICAN GOVERN- MENTS.

Major C. LOWTHER: 6.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether His Majesty's Government have recognised the Government of General Orellana in Guatemala; whether they have recognised the Central American Confederation; and, if not, whether the Governments of E1 Salvador and Honduras are still separately recognised?

Mr. HARMSWORTH: The Government of General Orellana has not been formally recognised by His Majesty's Government. The proposed Federal State of Central America has not come into effective existence, and the question of its recognition by His Majesty's Government has therefore not arisen. The reply to the last part of the question is in the affirmative.

Major LOWTHER: Was effect ever given to the suggestion that in E1 Salvador and Honduras there should be honorary chargés d'affaires?

Mr. HARMSWORTH: I should be glad to have notice of that question.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL NAVY.

SCHOOLMASTERS.

Sir T. BRAMSDON: 8.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty whether, inasmuch as a considerable time has now elapsed since any definite statement on the subject has been made, and observing that many married schoolmasters, Royal Navy, are in financial difficulties owing to the high cost of living which is still being maintained, he is now in a position to say that the long-promised revised scheme of pay and promotion for the officers of this branch has been examined and agreed to by the Treasury?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Mr. Amery): I regret I am not yet in a position to make any announcement on this subject.

AGE COMPENSATION.

Lieut. - Colonel W. GUINNESS: 9.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty whether under the terms of the Order published about 1912 under which the Supplementary List of the Navy was instituted, officers were promised an additional payment of 2s. per day as compensation for the higher age at which they could expect to attain the various ranks, but that this arrangement has been completely ignored in the recent increases of naval pay; and whether, since the original agreement was in the nature of a contract binding on both sides, the Admiralty will reconsider the matter again and grant the 2s. a day compensation of which these officers have now been deprived?

Mr. AMERY: Lieutenants entered on the Supplementary List under Order in Council of 7th March, 1913, received a messing allowance of 2s a day in addition to the ordinary rates of full pay of a Lieutenant, Royal Navy. In 1919 when the new rates of pay of officers were introduced, this allowance, together with messing allowances generally, was abolished, the new rates being considered sufficient without the allowances. There is no question of any breach of contract, since the new rates are invariably much higher than those in force at the time of entry plus the 2s. a day. The Admiralty see no reason for altering the decision arrived at.

Lieut.-Colonel GUINNESS: Will the hon. Gentleman deny that this extra 2s.
was given as compensation for the higher age and lower prospects of promotion, compared with those which there officers in the Merchant Service enjoyed? Under these conditions, is it not, in fact, a breach of contract; and were these officers not tempted by this extra 2s. a day to forego their career in the Merchant Service, trusting to compensation in the Navy?

Mr. AMERY: No, Sir. I do not think that is quite the case. This extra sum was offered as an inducement because the pay then was not quite adequate to men of their age.

Lieut.-Colonel GUINNESS: Is not promotion less favourable for them, in view of their age than for other officers of the Navy who have gone in much younger?

PENSIONER RATINGS, ROSYTH (LEAVE).

Sir T. BRAMSDON: 10.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty whether the pensioner ratings of the Rosyth reserve fleet working party who are serving under non-continuous service engagements have had their annual leave curtailed to 14 days per annum despite the fact that Article 872, paragraph 4, Clause (b), of the King's Regulations and Admiralty Instructions directs that 28 days' leave per annum shall be granted to the reserve fleet and ships in reserve?

Mr. AMERY: This matter is being investigated.

PAYMASTER-LIEUTENANTS (VACANCIES).

Sir T. BRAMSDON: 11.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty whether he is aware that three vacancies exist for paymaster-lieutenants promoted from commissioned writer, and for one commissioned writer; and when it is intended to fill these vacancies in view of the fact that no amendments have been made in the provisional establishment of these ranks, and that in May, 1921, the Admiralty considered that it would be equitable to the writer branch to adhere for the present to the arrangements for the provisional establishment of commissioned writers and paymaster-li utenants promoted from that rank, laid down in Admiralty Monthly Order 3,018A of 1918, rather than to make any immediate change in the numbers allowed?

Mr. AMERY: On the basis of the establishment for the Writer Branch given in Admiralty Monthly Order 3018a of 1918, three vacancies exist for paymaster-lieutenants and one for a commissioned writer. This establishment, however, was a provisional establishment laid down for the period of the War and is now subject to reconsideration. The Admiralty are aware that it was stated in May last that promotions would be continued for the present, but very drastic reductions in the Fleet are now in contemplation, which must inevitably reduce the requirements of personnel generally. In view of the changed conditions, the Admiralty can no longer continue to make promotions in vacancies until the whole question of the numbers of the branch has been considered.

SURPLUS OFFICERS (RETIREMENT).

Captain Viscount CURZON: 12.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty what special scheme of retirement has been decided upon for officers surplus to requirements?

Mr. AMERY: I regret I am not at present in a position to make any statement on the matter.

ESTIMATES, 1922-23.

15, 16, and 17. Rear-Admiral ADAIR asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty (1) whether the Report of Admiral Jerram's (Grand Fleet) Committee was considered before the marriage allowance, which was included in the sketch Estimates for 1922–23, was omitted;

(2) whether the children's allowance, of which married naval racers were deprived two years ago, will now be re-conceded as some compensation for the fact that the marriage allowance, which was included in the sketch Estimates for 1922–23, has now been omitted;

(3) whether the recommendations of Admiral Halsey's Committee in respect to Income Tax were given reconsideration before framing the Estimates for 1922–23, having regard to the omission of any children's allowance from the Estimates.

Mr. AMERY: With regard to Question 15, I presume the Committee referred to was the Grand Fleet Committee, presided over by Admiral Sir Henry Oliver, who is now a Member of the Board of Admiralty.
The answer is in the affirmative. I am afraid the answer to Question 16 must be in the negative. The Board were fully alive to the recommendations of the Halsey Committee regarding Income Tax when framing the sketch Estimate for 1922–23.

Rear-Admiral ADAIR: Are we to understand that the Admiralty thought this a very necessary inclusion in the sketch Estimates, and that under pressure of the Treasury they have withdrawn it, and is not that a very false economy?

Mr. AMERY: I must leave my hon. and gallant Friend to draw his own conclusions as to what is and what is not false economy.

ADMIRALTY STAFF (REDUCTIONS).

Mr. LAMBERT: 13.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty the numbers of the staff employed at the Admiralty in July, 1914, and at the latest available date?

Mr. AMERY: The number of staff employed at the Admiralty on 1st February was as follows:


Civil and naval staff
…
3,777


Messengers and charwomen
…
634


Total
…
4,411


This staff is being reduced by some 500 by the end of next month, and this reduction will be followed by further substantial reductions during the spring and summer months. I may add that it must be recognised that these reductions will seriously delay the distribution of War medals and prize money, and also the final winding up of transactions arising out of the War. Arrangements have already been made to get down to [...],800 by the end of the next financial year and methods of reducing this number still further are now under consideration. The staff in July, 1914, was:


Civil and naval staff
…
1,718


Messengers and charwomen
…
354


Total
…
2,072

Oral Answers to Questions — UNEMPLOYMENT.

STATISTICS.

Mr. TREVELYAN THOMSON: 18.
asked the Minister of Labour if he will give the latest available figures as regards unemployment, showing the total number registered as unemployed, the total number drawing unemployed benefit, and the total number whose period of benefit has expired and who are still unemployed, respectively; and what provision the Government proposes to make for those whose period of benefit will be exhausted within the next few months?

The MINISTER of LABOUR (Dr. Macnamara): The number of persons registered at the Employment Exchanges as wholly unemployed on 7th February was 1,892,000—a decrease of 42,600 in the last four weeks. On the same date, about 1,794,000 were claiming unemployment benefit. The earliest date at which the current 16 weeks of benefit can be exhausted is 22nd February. The condition of unemployment necessitates the extension of the further six weeks' benefit contemplated in the Act. I have felt it necessary, however, in order to conserve the fund for those in real need of assistance, to issue certain additional instructions in connection with this special extension. If my hon. Friend cares to put down an unstarred question for tomorrow, I will furnish him with a summary of these conditions.

Mr. THOMSON: Will the right hon. Gentleman reply to the last part of the question and say what provision will be made beyond that already provided for, namely, the six weeks in addition to the 16 weeks, which only takes us to the end of March? What provision will be made for the period of unemployment beyond March, when these benefits will expire?

Dr. MACNAMARA: I thought my hon. Friend's question had reference to the extension of six weeks. I have announced that that extension will be made, and that is as far as I can go at present.

Colonel Sir C. YATE: Will the extension be made on the full allowances now given, or on less allowances?

Dr. MACNAMARA: On the allowances of 15s. for men and 12s. for women, but, as I have said, with a view to seeing that assistance is given to those in real need
of it, I have issued a series of instructions, of which, as I have said, I shall be pleased to give my hon. Friend a summary if he will put a question down to-morrow.

Mr. WADDINGTON: 20.
asked the Minister of Labour the number of men, women, boys, and girls in the United Kingdom who were engaged in industry as operatives in January, 1914, and the number then out of employment; and what are the corresponding figures for January, 1922?

Dr. MACNAMARA: I regret that figures of the numbers employed at the dates mentioned are not available, but there is certain allied information which may be of service to my hon. Friend, and I will, if I may, circulate this in the OFFICIAL REPORT, together with such comparison as can be made of the proportions unemployed at the dates named.
The following is the information referred to:
The total number of persons working for employers in industries, professions and services, other than agriculture and domestic service, at January, 1914, is estimated, on the basis of such information as is available, to have been approximately 13,000,000 (8,700,000 men, 1,000,000 boys under 18, 2,500,000 women, 700,000 girls under 18). The figures include salaried employés as well as wage-earners, for whom no separate totals are available. On the basis of inquiries which were made in November, 1920, it appears that, at that date, the corresponding total was somewhere about 13,800,000 (8,800,000 men, 1,100,000 boys, 3,100,000 women, and 800,000 girls). I have no later information.
The only comparable figures of unemployment at the dates mentioned are those supplied by certain trade unions (mainly of skilled workmen) which pay out-of-work benefit and furnish returns. These figures show that 2.5 per cent. of the members of those unions were unemployed at the end of January, 1914, compared with 3.7 per cent. at the end of November, 1920, and 16.5 per cent. at the end of December, 1921.
I would add that the numbers of persons registered at Employment Exchanges
in the United Kingdom as wholly unemployed on 7th February, 1922, were as follow:


Men
…
…
…
1,446,974


Women
…
…
…
332,204


Boys
…
…
…
65,467


Girls
…
…
…
47,484






1,892,129

RELIEF WORKS, THEDWASTRE.

Lieut.-Colonel GUINNESS: 22.
asked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware that the Thedwastre District Council have spent £1,500 on a scheme of public utility on the strength of Circulars 245 and 251 of the Ministry of Health; that the work was inspected by an inspector of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, who expressed his approval, advising the continuance of the works and certain improvements, adding considerably to the cost; that this inspector assured the clerk and surveyor of the Thedwastre Rural District Council that a grant would be made; that the Unemployment Grants Committee have now refused to make the grant, with the result that a very heavy additional burden will be thrown upon the rates of this purely agricultural district; and that the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries were requested by the Unemployment Grants Committee to investigate and report upon these relief works; and whether the decision of the Unemployment Grants Committee to withhold the grant will be reconsidered in view of the expenditure having been undertaken on the faith of promises given by the Government?

The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Sir Arthur Boscawen): My right hon. Friend has asked me to take this question. Certain proposals in respect of which the Council has applied to the Unemployment Grants Committee for a grant were referred by that committee to the Ministry as "the appropriate Government Department" to decide whether the works could be regarded as "suitable works of public utility." The Ministry's inspector reported that the proposals were sound, but he did not advise as to the continuance of the works, nor did he give any assurance to the clerk or the surveyor of the rural district council that a grant
would be made. In the light of his report a certificate was sent by the Ministry to the Unemployment Grants Committee to the effect that the proposed works were suitable works of public utility. The decision as to making a grant rested solely with the Committee, who, I understand, were obliged to refuse a grant on account of the exhaustion of the funds at their disposal. I may add that all the works referred to in the hon. and gallant Member's question were apparently started some time before an application for financial assistance was submitted to the Unemployment Grants Committee and at no stage was any undertaking given that a grant would be forthcoming.

Lieut.-Colonel GUINNESS: Does the right hon. Gentleman deny that this inspector encouraged greater expenditure and more elaborate work, and did he not give the Council to understand that they would get a grant? May I ask the Minister of Labour, to whom the question on the Paper is addressed, whether he considers it satisfactory that his Department should have encouraged local authorities to go in for these schemes, virtually promising them a grant which the Department did not materialise; and is he aware that this district is already rated at 23s. in the £, and that his failure to redeem his promise will put another 1s. on the rates?

Sir A. BOSCAWEN: With regard to the question addressed to me, I understand that the inspector of the Ministry of Agriculture never gave any kind of idea that a grant would be made. His duty was solely to certify whether the works were of public utility or not.

FORESTRY RELIEF WORKS.

The following question, stood on the Order Paper in the name of Lieut.-Colonel A. MURRAY:

23. To ask the Minister of Labour the nature of the 465 schemes approved by the Forestry Commission in connection with the relief of unemployment; and whether it is proposed to proceed with the schemes pending a decision upon the recommendaiton of the Geddes Committee that the scheme of afforestation by the State should be discontinued?

Dr. MACNAMARA: This question will be answered by the Forestry Commission.

Lieut.-Colonel MURRAY: Did not the right hon. Gentleman himself refer to these schemes in a speech which he made a short time ago?

Dr. MACNAMARA: Certainly, but this is a matter which lies in the province of the Forestry Commission, and I understand that the Parliamentary Forestry Commissioner is responsible.

FARM SERVANTS (INSURANCE).

Major McMICKING: 25.
asked the Minister of Labour whether the question of bringing farm servants within the scope of the Unemployment Insurance Acts is within the terms of reference to the Inter - Departmental Committee recently appointed by him and the Minister of Health to investigate the cost of insurance administration; and whether he is aware that such a proposal would be opposed by a large section of the agricultural community in Scotland?

Dr. MACNAMARA: This question would not, I think, come within the scope of the Committee. My hon. and gallant Friend may rest assured that if any proposal to include agriculture were made, the employers and employed persons in this industry would be consulted before action was taken.

Major McMICKING: Will my right hon. Friend give an undertaking that agricultural workers will not be brought within the scope of the Unemployment Insurance Acts until the consent of this House has been obtained?

Dr. MACNAMARA: Under the law I may make an Order including them. But. I certainly should not propose to do so without carefully consulting the parties concerned.

INSURANCE BOARD.

Mr. RHYS DAVIES: 28.
asked the Minister of Labour whether he will inquire into the constitution of the management of the Incorporated Industry Unemployment Insurance Board; and whether he will take steps to see that the principle of democratic representation is applied to the management of the organisation?

Dr. MACNAMARA: The original members, who are at present in office and are to retire in rotation, were elected by the employers, and employés repre-
sentatives respectively on the committee which set up the scheme. The method of appointing their successors requires the approval of the Minister of Labour and has not yet been determined.

WOMEN AND GIRLS.

Mrs. WINTRINGHAM: 29.
asked the Minister of Labour how many women's and girls' posts Were found through the Employment Exchanges in the year 1921; and what were the principal occupations?

Dr. MACNAMARA: During the year 1921 the Employment Exchanges filled vacancies for 216,742 women and 61,057 girls—a total of 277,799. Of these vacancies 45,620 were in resident domestic

WOMEN AND GIRLS—VACANCIES FILLED DURING 1921.


—
Women.
Girls.
Total.


Domestic Service—





Resident
…
38,790
6,830
25,620


Non-Resident
…
31,991
14,102
46,093


Waitress
…
11,842
579
12,421


Laundry
…
5,214
764
5,978


Charwomen
…
54,319
148
54,467


Other Domestic
…
828
454
1,282


Total Domestic Service
…
142,984
22,877
165,861


Dress
…
19,699
5,999
25,698


Textiles
…
11,114
—
11,114


Commercial and Clerical
…
10,927
5,111
16,038


Messengers
…
—
5,998
5,998


Others
…
32,018
21,072
53,090


Grand Total
…
216,742
61,057
277,799

HEALTH INSURANCE.

Mr. RHYS DAVIES: 65.
asked the Minister of Health whether, in view of the fact that approximately 2,000,000 insured persons have been unemployed for 26 weeks since July, 1921, and will thereby be disentitled to receive the ordinary sickness, disablement, and maternity benefits under the National Health Insurance Acts for 12 months from the 1st January, 1923, it is his intention to prolong beyond 31st December, 1922, the arrangement embodied in the Act passed last year and the amended arrears Regulations subsequently issued, under which persons unemployed through no fault of their own remain entitled to certain minimum cash benefits; and, if not, what other arrangement he proposes
service, 120,241 in other kinds of domestic service, 25,698 in dressmaking, boots and shoes, &c., 11,114 in textiles and 16,038 in commercial and clerical work. I am forwarding to my hon. Friend a statement showing the position in greater detail.

Viscount CURZON: Do the figures which the right hon. Gentleman has given include any people who have been duplicated, that is, for whom employment has been found twice over?

Dr. MACNAMARA: I take it that charwomen, for instance, have been included who have been in more than one employment during that time.

Following is the statement supplied:

to make as regards 1923 to meet case of approximately one-sixth in number of the insured population?

The MINISTER of HEALTH (Sir Alfred Mond): The title of insured persons to benefits during the year 1923 is governed by the number of contributions paid during the whole of the current contribution year, which does not end until the 2nd July next. There is, therefore, no need for any decision at present on the question raised by the hon. Member, and I am not yet in possession of sufficient information to enable me to arrive at a decision.

MILK (IMPURITIES).

Mr. DOYLE: 31.
asked the Minister of Health if his attention has been called to
the repeated allegations that much of the milk served out to the public is dirty and impure and is a menace to the health of the community?

Sir A. MOND: I have for some time, in consultation with leading experts, been considering what steps can be taken to improve the milk supply, but I cannot yet say whether it will be possible to introduce legislation this Session.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSING.

LOCAL AUTHORITIES' SCHEMES.

Mr. DOYLE: 32.
asked the Minister of Health what is the position of the Government in regard to the carrying out of the housing proposals of local authorities; how many schemes have been sanctioned; what is the total expenditure to which his Department is committed; and how many houses have been erected in the United Kingdom during the last three months?

Sir A. MOND: In reply to the first part of the question, I would refer to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for the Heywood Division (Mr. Halls) on the 9th February. The number of separate schemes approved for local authorities and public utility societies is 4,372. The capital commitments in respect of the schemes for which tenders have been approved amount approximately to £178,000,000. The number of houses completed in England and Wales under the housing schemes during the last three months is 28,004.

CONVERSIONS, KENSINGTON.

Sir W. DAVISON: 34.
asked the Minister of Health what was the total amount of the estimates supplied by the Ministry to the council of the Royal borough of Kensington in connection with the acquisition of houses in that borough and their conversion into flats and maisonnettes under the recent housing legislation; what was the actual cost found to have been incurred on the completion of the said conversions; and, if in excess of the estimated cost, by how much were such estimates exceeded?

Sir A. MOND: The total of the estimates for the acquisition and conversion of houses into flats was £39,245. The
actual cost on completion was £83,415, the excess being £44,170. I understand that the excess was mainly due to the fact that when the houses were opened up for the purpose of carrying out the conversion, a very large amount of repair to the structure of the houses, which could not be foreseen, was found to be necessary. The remainder of the excess was due to increases in the cost of wages and materials, and to variations found necessary in the scheme after the estimate was made.

Sir W. DAVISON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the local authority protested to the Ministry, with regard to a number of these houses, that they were quite unsuitable for conversion, and does he not think it scandalous that they-should be forced to convert houses which involve them in an excess above the estimate of over £44,000?

Sir A. MOND: The hon. Baronet must be aware that it does not involve the local authority in anything more than a 1d. rate. It is the unfortunate taxpayer who will have to provide it. We were very much pressed at that time by local authorities to provide this accommodation.

Sir W. DAVISON: Unfortunately, is it not a fact that the local ratepayers are also taxpayers?

SUBSIDY.

Mr. A. WILLIAMS: 36.
asked the Minister of Health whether the Government have considered the desirability of extending until 1924 the period during which the housing subsidy for new houses will be given to local authorities?

Sir A. MOND: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave on Thursday last to a question of the hon. Member for the Heywood Division (Mr. Halls) on this matter.

Mr. T. THOMSON: Will the right hon. Gentleman say why the same consideration should not be given to English housing authorities as has been given to Scottish housing authorities?

Sir A. MOND: As far as I am aware, exactly the same consideration is going to be extended.

STATE INTERVENTION.

Mr. WILLIAMS: 37.
asked the Minister of Health what proposals His Majesty's
Government intend to bring forward in the early future for meeting the great and still continuing dearth of houses?

Sir A. MOND: In view of the large programme of housing still to be completed, and the continued reduction in prices, I hope that further State intervention in any form will not be required, and that the building industry will return to its pre-War economic basis.

Mr. WILLIAMS: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the industry has failed in the endeavour to supply the smaller houses?

Sir A. MOND: Before the War the private building industry supplied about 95 per cent.

UNOCCUPIED HOUSES.

Mr. MILLS: 44.
asked the Minister of Health whether, in view of the fact that houses for which a subsidy has been paid are being kept empty for sale, he will introduce legislation to compel owners to let the same within a limited time or to compel the owners to pay rates for the same if refusing tenants?

Sir A. MOND: I have no evidence that this practice is in any way extensive, and I would point out that the present falling prices are unfavourable to its adoption. As regards the question of legislation, I would refer to my reply on Thursday last to the question put by the hon. Member for the Heywood and Radcliffe Division.

Sir F. FLANNERY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that a large number of houses are being intentionally kept empty for the purpose of sale, and that tenancies are being refused?

Sir A. MOND: I am aware that there are cases of the kind; but the question of dealing legislatively with the question reveals features of very great complication beyond the immediate difficulties; as to the question of rates, I am looking into it.

Mr. KILEY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in the City of London empty premises are placed upon half rates; and could not that be applied to other parts of the country?

Sir A. MOND: I will consider that. I have been looking into the matter, but it is one of very great difficulty.

CONTRACTS.

Mr. CHARLES EDWARDS: 66.
asked the Minister of Health the number of houses included in contracts approved by him and the average cost per house during the following periods: where the contracts were approved by him prior to 30th June, 1921; where the contracts were approved by him between 30th June and 31st December, 1921; and where the contracts were approved during the current year?

Sir A. MOND: The number of houses in approved tenders is 165,330. The average tender prices approved for these period are as follow:
Prior to the 30th June, 1921, £815 and £917 for non-parlour and parlour houses respectively; for the period 30th June to 31st December, 1921, £593 and £684; and during the current year £478 and £534.

LEE WATERSHED.

Brigadier-General COLVIN: 35.
asked the Minister of Health if it is intended to take any steps to carry out the recommendation made by Mr. P. M. Crossthwaite, in his Report to the Local Government Board, dated 30th June, 1919, on the flooding of the Lee Valley, that one central authority should control the whole watershed; and whether he will convene a conference of the riparian authorities concerned with a view to appointing this authority?

Sir A. MOND: I am advised that the cost of a complete scheme for the prevention of flooding in the Lee Valley would be out of all proportion to the benefits to be derived from it, and, therefore, I do not think that any useful purpose would be served by convening a conference of riparian authorities for the object suggested by my hon. and gallant Friend.

Brigadier-General COLVIN: Will the right hon. Gentleman say if he approves of the suggestion that the whole of the administration of the Lee Valley should be placed under one authority?

Sir A. MOND: I will consider that question.

LUNATIC ASYLUMS (ADMINISTRA- TION).

Captain LOSEBY: 38.
asked the Minister of Health, in connection with a Departmental Committee which was recently set up to inquire into and report upon the charges made against asylum administration by Dr. Lomax, in a book entitled "The Experiences of an Asylum Doctor," whether he is aware that Dr. Lomax has expressed his unwillingness to give evidence before this Departmental Committee upon the alleged grounds that it is so constituted as to render difficult an impartial verdict, and notably because one member of the Committee has openly and publicly prejudged the issue and because all of the members are representative of the system criticised; that the National Asylum Workers' Union has refused to allow its members to give evidence upon the same on similar grounds; that the terms of reference are such as to shut out a, mass of evidence corroborating or refuting the charges made in the book; that the Committee has no power to administer an oath, pay the expenses of witnesses properly called, or protect witnesses when called; that charges similar to the charges made by Dr. Lomax are being repeated almost daily by responsible persons in the public Press; that some 6,000 ex-service men are being detained under the system thus openly attacked; and that Dr. Lomax and other persons have expressed their anxiety to give evidence before any impartial and disinterested tribunal; and whether, in view of the widespread public anxiety that the actual facts should be elucidated, he will advise the setting up of a Royal Commission, with wide powers of investigation and report, upon which true House of Commons is adequately represented?

Mr. MILLS: 60.
asked the Minister of Health whether, in view of the difficulties which have arisen in connection with the departmental committee of inquiry into the treatment of asylum patients and of the refusal of the National Asylum Workers' Union to elect a representative because, in their opinion, the terms of reference exclude material evidence and fail to protect witnesses, he will consider the appointment of a Royal Commission to explore the whole problem and the future treatment of all types of mental disorder?

Sir A. MOND: The question of the appointment of a Royal Commission on the point raised by my hon. Friends is under my consideration. I would, however, point out that it would necessarily involve a long delay before any practical steps could be taken, and postpone reforms which, by general agreement, might, I hope, be introduced at an early date. In view of the necessity for an expeditious investigation into the allegations made by Dr. Lomax, I have appointed a Departmental Committee. As regards the personnel of the Committee, I am informed that neither of the medical members is or has been associated with any asylum maintained out of public funds, nor is it correct to say that the Chairman is in any sense a representative of the system criticised. I fear it is impossible for me to obtain the services of any expert who has not already shown interest in Dr. Lomax's criticisms. I regret that Dr. Lomax is not prepared to substantiate before the Committee the charges which he has publicly made, and that the National Asylum Workers' Union have refused to defend their members against Dr. Lomax's charges; but I cannot admit that either he or they are entitled to dictate the composition of any tribunal of inquiry on the issues raised, for the appointment of which I am solely responsible.

Captain LOSEBY: Is it not a fact that one member of the tribunal has openly and publicly delivered a slashing attack upon Dr. Lomax and his book, long before the investigation; is it not a fact that Dr. Lomax has made a terrible indictment against a system rather than against men; does the right hon. Gentleman not think that Dr. Lomax and others have put up a sufficiently strong primâ facie case to warrant a tribunal of transparent impartiality?

Sir A. MOND: I cannot accept the last part of the hon. and gallant Gentleman's question. The tribunal is quite impartial. Dr. Lomax has now an opportunity of substantiating his charges. He made very serious allegations about a certain institution which, I considered, required immediate investigation, and I have appointed very competent people to investigate them. It is now for Dr. Lomax to try to substantiate his charges, or withdraw them.

Mr. MILLS: Will the Minister of Health qualify the condemnation of the Asylum Workers' Union by saying that the refusal was due to certain limitations upon their members?

Sir A. MOND: I said that I regretted that they refused to appear and give evidence.

Mr. MILLS: There were reasons.

Sir A. MOND: The reason put to me was that they wanted a representative on the Committee. Considering that they are the people who are mainly attacked by Dr. Lomax in this matter, it, obviously, would not be proper to put them, the defendants, on the Committee. In the interests of the members, I should have thought it was their duty to come forward to clear their members.

Captain LOSEBY: May I press my right hon. Friend for an answer to my question, as to whether it has come within his knowledge that one member of the tribunal has openly attacked Dr. Lomax in advance of the investigation, and if he finds that is the case will he substitute for this particular gentleman someone else?

Sir A. MOND: I see no reason for making the alteration suggested.

Mr. R. RICHARDSON: 63.
asked the Minister of Health whether, in the recent conference between the Lunacy Board of control and lunacy officials in regard to the administration of the Statute, any decision was arrived at as to taking steps to acquaint the next-of-kin of ex-service men with their rights in regard to the discharge of private patients and also as to the urgency of posting up Section 79 of the Act in the waiting-rooms of asylums with a view to informing the relatives of pauper patients of the rights conferred upon them by the Statute.

Sir A. MOND: Since 1st January last the Board of Control have adopted the practice of sending a circular to the next-of-kin of ex-service men immediately on receiving a notice of transfer to the service class, setting out the provisions of Sections 72–74 of the Lunacy Act, 1890, as to discharge of private patients. In regard to the latter part of the question, all asylum authorities have been requested to set out the effect of Section 79 of the Act in the Regulations as to
Visitation which are sent to friends of patients. This the Board consider preferable to putting up a notice in the waiting-room.

Captain LOSEBY: Has the right hon. Gentleman not had some trouble with the next-of-kin who took advantage of that, and are, in consequence, deprived of training allowances and sometimes of a portion of their pension?

Sir A. MOND: I have had no notice of this question in my Department.

GAS POISONING.

Mr. THOMSON: 33.
asked the Minister of Health whether his attention has been drawn to the numerous cases recently reported of gas poisoning; and whether it is possible for him to take steps to prevent gas being supplied to the public which cannot readily be detected when an escape occurs?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Sir Mitchell-Thomson): I have been asked to answer this question, and would refer the hon. Member to the reply given on Monday last to a question asked by the hon. Member for South Kensington (Sir W. Davison), of which I am sending him a copy.

WATER SUPPLIES.

Major KELLEY: 39.
asked the Minister of Health whether he proposes to introduce any legislation this year for the conservation of water supplies or to increase the powers of the water authorities?

Sir A. MOND: I do not at present contemplate the introduction of legislation in regard to water supplies, but the position is being carefully watched and a number of administrative measures have been taken.

CANAL BOATS (LIVING-IN).

Mr. N. CHAMBERLAIN: 40.
asked the Minister of Health whether he has considered the recommendations of the Departmental Committee on the practice of living-in on canal boats; and what action, if any, he proposes to take in connection therewith?

Sir A. MOND: I have given most careful consideration to the recommendations of the Committee over which my hon. Friend presided. I am afraid, however, that the present time is not opportune for the introduction of legislation to give effect to their recommendations.

Mr. N. CHAMBERLAIN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the investigation of the Committee showed that about 1,000 children were to-day living in canal boats, and that the great majority of these children were uneducated; does he not think that that calls for legislation?

Sir A. MOND: I read the Report very carefully, and I certainly agree with my hon. Friend that the state of things is not altogether satisfactory; but this does not seem to me to be the best moment for legislation.

LOCAL AUTHORITIES, POPLAR (EMPLOYES).

Lieut.-Colonel POWNALL: 41.
asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware of the feeling of resentment in the general body of the population caused by the maintenance of the wages of its employés by the Poplar Borough Council above the rates ruling under trade union agreements and in accordance with the scales based upon the cost of living; and whether he can take any action to remove this cause of unrest?

Sir A. MOND: I have no power to take any action in the matter to which the hon. Member refers; the remedy in such matters as this lies in the hands of the municipal electors themselves.

Sir R. BLAIR: 42.
asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that the Poplar Borough Council has decided that no man who is not a member of a trade union shall be employed by it, that no man whose trade union card is six weeks in arrears shall be taken on, and that men in arrear without justification shall he put off at once; whether these regulations apply to works for the relief of unemployment instituted by the Poplar Borough Council; and, if so, whether such a limitation as to the persons to be employed is permitted in the case of contributions towards such works out of moneys granted by Parliament for the provision of work for the unemployed generally?

Sir A. MOND: I understand that the facts stated in the first part of the question are substantially correct. With regard to the remainder of the question, I am informed that the men employed on works in respect of which grants are made by the Unemployed Grants Committee are engaged through the Employment Exchange, and that there is no discrimination between those who have trade union tickets and those who have not.

Sir R. BLAIR: 43.
asked the Minister of Health whether the Poplar Board of Guardians have failed, notwithstanding the gradual reduction in the cost of living and the agreements arrived at between employers and trade unions as to the lowering of salaries and wages, in accordance with, such agreements, to reduce the salaries and wages of any of their officers or employés except in the case of those coming under the provisions of the Civil Service Award No. 102; and whether the salaries or wages of any officer or employé not coming under the Civil Service award are a charge upon the Common Poor Fund?

Sir A. MOND: I understand that the guardians have postponed the reduction of salaries and wages of employés not coining under the Civil Service award, but that this question is to be considered at their next meeting. I am, however, informed that practically the whole of the administrative relief and institution staffs are covered by the Civil Service award, and steps will be taken to limit the charge on the Common Poor Fund in respect of salaries or wages which are not so covered.

LOCAL ELECTIONS (PARISH RELIEF).

Mr. MILLS: 59.
asked the Minister of Health whether his attention has been called to the position of an unemployed man whose wife and children have obtained parish relief, but who has abstained himself from such a claim, in relation to the elections shortly to be held for local government and county councils; and whether he has considered the desirability of introducing legislation to declare whether such a person is disqualified because his dependants have received relief?

Sir A. MOND: I am not at present in a position to make a statement on the matter to which the hon. Member refers.

MOTHERS AND CHILDREN (FOOD AND MILK).

Lieut.-Colonel POWNALL: 61.
asked the Minister of Health whether he has yet come to a decision as to the policy to be pursued during the next financial year with reference to the supply by local authorities of food and milk to expectant and nursing mothers and young children, which is the subject of Circular 267 issued by his Department in December last?

Sir A. MOND: The Circular in question was in part the outcome of my desire to carry on the policy adopted by my predecessor of reducing the expenditure on the supply of milk to expectant and nursing mothers and young children which he found to be excessive. The Circular also embodied medical advice as to the value of supplying meals instead of milk, which I received from my medical advisers and from outside persons of great authority. I have now received replies from most of the local authorities, which are generally to the effect that they prefer to continue the supply of milk, in view of the difficulty of arranging for the general supply of meals. I, therefore, propose to continue during the next financial year the arrangements at present in force for the supply of milk under proper safeguards against abuse, allowing local authorities to substitute meals for milk where they desire and are able to do so.

GERMAN INCOME TAX.


Old Rates.
(Law of 24th March, 1921.)
New Rates.
(Law of 21st December, 1921.)



Marks.

Tax per cent.

Marks.

Tax per cent.


First
24,000
…
10
First
50,000
…
10


Next
6,000
…
20
Next
10,000
…
15


 Next
5,000
…
25
 Next
20,000
…
20


 Next
5,000
…
30
 Next
20,000
…
25


 Next
5,000
…
35
 Next
100,000
…
30


 Next
5,000
…
40
 Next
100,000
…
35


 Next
70,000
…
45
 Next
200,000
…
40


 Next
80,000
…
50
 Next "
500,000
…
45


 Next
200,000
…
55
 Next
500,000
…
50


Excess
400,000
…
60
 Next
500,000
…
55


over



Excess over
2,000,000
…
60

INCOME TAX, GERMANY.

Mr. WISE: 46.
asked the Prime Minister if the Income Tax has been reduced in Germany; and if so, to what extent?

Mr. YOUNG: Yes, Sir. I am circulating in the OFFICIAL REPORT a table comparing the new and old rates of tax. I understand that the purpose of the amendment was to adapt the scale of abatements and graduation to the depreciation of the mark. The internal purchasing power of the mark has fallen by over 40 per cent. since last March when the old scale was adopted, and its external purchasing power to an even greater extent.

Sir W. DAVISON: What is the Income Tax now payable in Germany in equivalent British currency?

Mr. YOUNG: I believe the information that I am circulating in the OFFICIAL REPORT will enable the hon. Gentleman to ascertain that.

Mr. ARTHUR MICHAEL SAMUEL: Does the hon. Gentleman say in his report what is the amount levied and the amount collected?

Mr. YOUNG: In Germany? That is not included in the information I am circulating, and I am afraid that my means of information do not allow me to give it.

Mr. WISE: Could not the Reparations Committee have some control over the reduction of the German Income Tax?

Mr. YOUNG: That, of course, is a question of high policy; as I understand it, under the Peace Treaty they have no such control.

The following is the table:

Principal Abatements.
Deducted from tax payable.
Deducted from tax payable.



Marks.
Marks.


For taxpayer
120
240


For wife
120
240


For each child under age
180
360


For each dependant
180
360


For expenses of occupation (earned incomes only)
180
540


The abatement are subject to reduction for larger incomes, and cease altogether for incomes above 100,000 under the old law for those above 200,000 under the new.


It will be observed that tax commences to be paid at a much lower scale of income than in this country.

Oral Answers to Questions — IRELAND.

CRIMINAL INJURIES (AWARDS).

Viscount EDNAM: 48.
asked the Prime Minister the total amount of unpaid claims due to private individuals in the South of Ireland for damage done by Sinn Feiners, for which Decrees have been granted by county court judges; what steps are being taken by the Government towards their payment; and whether, in view of the fact that interest at 5 per cent. has been granted on these claims, some of which have been owing for over a year, the Government will take steps, in the interests of economy, to pay these off at once?

The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Colonel Sir Hamar Greenwood): The total amount of the compensation awarded to private individuals in Southern Ireland in respect of injuries to person or property is £7,667,368, for the period from the 1st June, 1919, to the 31st December, 1921. It is not at present possible to distinguish the Decrees made in respect of injuries committed by Sinn Feiners from those made in respect of injuries dominated by other persons. As the House has already been informed, it is hoped to make a full statement on this subject in connection with the Bill of Indemnity.

LORD LIEUTENANT (PROTECTION).

Viscount EDNAM: 67.
asked the Chief Secretary for Ireland if he can inform the House whether the Lord Lieutenant's motor car, which was recently held up in broad daylight in Dublin by a gang of armed men and stolen, has yet been re covered; whether this motor car was private or public property; and whether the Government intend to leave a portion
of the Crown forces in Ireland for the protection of the Lord Lieutenant's person, his private property, and of the Viceregal Lodge, and other public pro-property?

The SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Mr. Churchill): The car in question is public property. The reply to the other parts of the question is in the negative. The forces of the Provisional Government will assume the duties of protection at present carried out by the British forces and police as soon as they are in a position to do so.

DISTURBANCES.

Sir J. BUTCHER: (by Private Notice) asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been called to a cable message alleged to have been sent on Monday last by Mr. Michael Collins to Mr. Lyons, of the American Association of the Irish Republic, in which Mr. Collins is reported as saying that the alternative to the Treaty sooner or later is a reversion to war conditions, that he wants the people to decide, and that if they decide for war, none of them need doubt where he will stand; and what steps the Government propose to take in view of this announcement by Mr. Collins?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I noticed the message to which reference has been made in the Press. It does not, in my opinion, call for any comment on the part of His Majesty's Government.

Sir J. BUTCHER: Will my right hon. Friend convey to Mr. Collins this intimation, that a threat of war to be waged by Ireland on Great Britain is not conducive to good government in Southern Ireland, or to good relations between Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland?

Mr. CHURCHILL: The very purpose of the statement made by Mr. Collins to America was, I assume, to induce and facilitate the acceptance of the Treaty. Anyhow, I do not think we want to make more heavy weather than we can help.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir W. ALLEN: (by Private Notice) asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he can make any statement regarding the condition of affairs in Belfast and the loss of life and the number wounded by shooting into crowded thoroughfares; if he will say whether the military and Royal Irish Constabulary are now under the control of the British authorities, and, if so, will he state what steps are being taken to deal with the serious state of affairs there?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I have one or two pieces of information to give to the House, and perhaps I may incorporate them in my answer to this question. In the first place, I have heard from Mr. Michael Collins, who is now in this country, that he has already been able to obtain the release of 15 of the kidnapped persons, and that he hopes more will be liberated during the day. I am satisfied that every effort of influence and persuasion is being used by the Provisional Government to secure the release of these persons, and I am assured that in the meanwhile they are being kept in safety and under decent conditions. I have been very much concerned at the attitude of mutual suspicion which has been growing up on both sides of the Ulster border. There is great apprehension in Northern Ireland that there may be some violent incursion, and a great suspicion that large numbers of the Irish Republican Army are accumulating and concentrating in the villages of Monaghan, and that, therefore, possibly there may be an attack. I have received several very anxious telegrams on that subject. On the other hand, there is a considerable movement of armed constables taking place north of the line, and similar apprehensions are entertained by those on the south side. I therefore proposed, yesterday, to the Northern and Southern Governments that there should be two impartial commissions set up, consisting of several British officers and of officers from the forces on either side of the border—from the Northern force in the case of the North, and from the Southern force in the case of the South, and that these two liaison commissions should move about on each side of the
frontier, and should be in communication with each other and interchange information constantly, in order to allay suspicions which might easily give rise to some serious incident. I have received from the Northern Government prompt and unqualified acceptance, and I also received from Mr. Collins to-day his full agreement with the proposal, which I hope, will tend to allay the uncertainty that prevails, and to stabilise the position.
I have received, in answer to the question specifically put to me, two communications about Belfast. The first, which I will impart to the House, is from the Provisional Government in Ireland. Complaint has been made to them of a serious character to this effect—I am not quoting textually:

Feb. 6th. Barman Gray shot dead at work.
Feb. 7th. Three wounded.
Feb. 8th. McDonough shot dead, Meadow Street.
Feb. 11th. Mrs. Page shot dead in her shop.
Feb. 12th. Mathers and Tennyson tortured, and shot dead, Millfield. Leary and Gregg shot dead, Carrick Hill.
Feb. 13th. Lamb, publican, shot dead in shop. McNellis, barman, shot dead at work. Bomb thrown among children at play. Kennedy and Johnston instantly killed; three others since died in hospital; remaining seventeen in hospital, terribly mutilated.

That is the substance of the complaint addressed to the Provisional Government in Dublin from persons in Belfast, and forwarded by them to me. I am bound to put it before the House, in pursuance of the principle of stating exactly what is taking place in Ireland. I have also received from the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland (Sir James Craig) the following statement:
Disturbances of Monday were renewed yesterday morning at 6.15 a.m. by sniping from the Sinn Fein Falls Road area. Later in the morning, a leading official of the Orange body was murdered in an Orange hall, causing intense feeling of resentment throughout the loyal population. Sniping then became general throughout the disturbed area. Later an armed sniper, with the barrel of his rifle still hot, was captured by the Special Constabulary. In the evening an attack was made on tramway workers while at their work on the tram lines. One of the assailants was shot dead by the police. Reinforcements of the military were called out and comparative quiet was restored, save in the east district, which had been quiet
all day. In that district, between 8 and 9 p.m. a gang of rowdies went through an outlying portion of the district firing at several houses, including that of the parish priest. Two men were shot on the street by them during this period, and several persons wounded. I regret to state that the total casualties for the day reported to the police up till now are 6 killed and 24 wounded.
To-day the City is comparatively quiet. Until the kidnapped loyalists are returned unharmed, I fear that the intense bitterness that has been aroused between opposing parties owing to that and other outrages will be difficult to allay. The military are cooperating fully with the police, and are doing everything possible to protect life and property.
I should like to take this opportunity of expressing what I know is the opinion of every man in every part of the House, and what I certainly know is the opinion of those who are responsible for the government of Northern and Southern Ireland, namely, that the time has come when everyone who has any influence of any kind or sort on either side of the frontier-line of Northern and Southern Ireland ought to set to work to remove every obstacle of temporary vexation and quarrel which is now existing, in order to allay the truly inhuman and unchristian state of things which is proceeding. The greatest pressure has been put by His Majesty's Government upon the Irish Provisional Government to effect the release of the kidnapped persons, and I do trust that should they be successful, and should the Provisional Government be successful, we may look for similar action, or action couched in a similar spirit, on the part of the Northern Irish Government in releasing certain prisoners whom they have in their hands, and whose continued detention, although no serious crime is alleged against them, is undoubtedly one of the causes of trouble. I do not for one moment compare prisoners who have been taken lawfully, and are being proceeded against at law in the courts, with persons who were kidnapped; but I do ask men of good will not to take fine points in matters of such a character.

Sir W. ALLEN: Will the right hon. Gentleman use his best influence with His Majesty's Government to remove what is really the foundation of the trouble in the entire business, that is to say, to leave the boundary question in accordance with the Act of 1920?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I do not agree that it is, but—

Mr. SPEAKER: That is a question set down on the Paper for debate to-morrow.

Mr. MOLES: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether, despite the fact that 128 people were kidnapped by violence across the border of Southern Ireland and four Special Constables were killed and six wounded, there has been a solitary act of reprisal from any Protestant on the frontier line—because the statement he has made is calculated to convey the contrary impression? May I further ask whether, having regard to the statement which the right hon. Gentleman has made as to the proposal to liberate persons caught proceeding to a football match with 20 bombs in their car, and a corresponding number of revolvers with ammunition, it is to be laid down now by him and the Government that such people are to be free to pass through Northern Ireland, but that, if you send police through Southern Ireland to go to the defence of these raided areas, they are to be assassinated? Will the right hon. Gentleman state the policy on that?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I certainly have not the slightest intention of colouring the information which I receive, or the statements which I make to the House, in one direction or the other. The only possible means by which we shall escape from this hideous business is by frankly stating the facts. I shall he very glad to receive from my hon. Friend the evidence which he has as to the bombs and revolvers of which he speaks. I have frequently asked for this evidence, but I have not yet had it furnished to me, and I do not think that, if it were forthcoming, the Northern Government would have taken the very lenient course of saying that they would not oppose bail if it were asked for by these men. That is all I have to say on that particular subject, but I should like to bear my tribute to the strenuous and intense efforts which have been made by the authorities in Northern Ireland to prevent reprisals, and the success which, as the hon. Gentleman says, those efforts have undoubtedly achieved on the frontier in preventing anything like a violent counter-outbreak. The disturbances in Belfast are of a peculiar character, but of a very horrible character. I
know perfectly well that Sir James Craig and his colleagues are working night and day to try and limit these serious and horrible cases, and I wish to make it absolutely clear that we have every confidence in their strenuous efforts to do all they can to prevent reprisals in any form and loss of life and destruction of property.

Sir W. DAVISON: May I ask the Leader of the House whether, in view of the terrible state of affairs existing in Northern and Southern Ireland, as evidenced by the statement just made by the Colonial Secretary, the Government really intend to proceed with the Bill that is on the Paper for to-morrow?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN (Leader of the House): Yes, Sir. I have repeatedly stated that this lamentable state of affairs is a measure of the urgency of investing the Provisional Government in Southern Ireland with full legal power to deal with disorder.

Mr. MOLES: Arising out of that statement, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he has seen the Press reports of the proceedings before the magistrates, in which is specifically set out the number of arms found and the extent of the ammunition; and, as to the position of Belfast, whether he is not well aware of the fact that every Member of Parliament in Belfast throughout these terrible times has literally taken his life in his hands in endeavouring to prevent breaches of the peace, and that some have even been under fire, even so late as yesterday; and is he also aware of the fact that all the persons killed yesterday were Protestants?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I have given all the information that I have. I am quite certain that my hon. Friend and those associated with him will do their very utmost to reduce the fury and the retaliatory action which has been taken.

Oral Answers to Questions — PALESTINE.

JEWISH SETTLEMENT.

Mr. RAPER: 49.
asked if His Majesty's Government is pledged to assist the Zionists in establishing a Jewish State in Palestine?

Mr. CHURCHILL: The pledges of His Majesty's Government are contained in the letter addressed to Lord Rothschild by my right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council in November, 1917. I have already explained to the House the interpretation placed by His Majesty's Government on the language of that letter.

OIL.

Mr. MALONE: 71.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what developments are taking place with regard to oil in Palestine; which companies or groups have received concessions to bore for oil in Palestine; and why all reference to oil developments was omitted from the review of commerce and industries contained in the Interim Report of the High Commissioner?

Mr. CHURCHILL: No concessions to bore for oil in Palestine have been granted to any companies or groups since the British occupation. Certain companies and groups, British and foreign, claim to have acquired concessions of this nature from the Ottoman Government before the War. When the Treaty of Peace with Turkey is ratified such claims will be dealt with in accordance with the terms of Section 6 of the Treaty. Permission has been accorded to certain companies to examine the areas over which they claim to have acquired concessions, with a view to determining whether or not to pursue their claims. It has been made clear that the grant of this permission does not prejudice the question of the validity of the claims concerned, and, further, that no exploitation will be allowed until the political status of Palestine has been regularised. There have been no developments in connection with oil which could suitably have been included in the High Commissioner's Interim Report.

Mr. MALONE: Can we be assured that no monopoly will be granted in this country?

Mr. CHURCHILL: That is a very general question to ask in relation to oil.

ARMS (IMPORTATION).

Mr. RAPER: 76.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, as stated in the Palestine Press, Messrs.
Jabotinsky and David Yellin were implicated in the importation and smuggling of arms into Palestine through the port of Haifa?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I have no knowledge of the Press reports referred to in the question. I am awaiting a full report on the incident from the High Commissioner for Palestine.

Mr. RAPER: Has the right hon. Gentleman's Department received any report at all on this question?

Mr. CHURCHILL: No, Sir; not according to my information.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Is this the same Mr. Jabotinsky who took part in the raising of the Jewish Legion in the War?

Mr. CHURCHILL: It sounds very much like it.

APIARIES AND INCUBATORS (CUSTOMS).

Viscount CURZON: 78.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if the High Commissioner for Palestine has reversed his decision to exempt apiaries and incubators from paying Customs dues?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I have no information on the point raised by the Noble and gallant Lord.

DIPHTHERIA, LONDON.

Mr. GILBERT: 62.
asked the Minister of Health whether there has recently been an increase in the number of cases of diphtheria in London; whether the number of such cases are abnormal; what steps his Department has taken in order to stay the spread of this epidemic; and can he make any general statement on the subject?

Sir A. MOND: The answer to the first two parts of the question is in the affirmative. I regret that it is impossible for me in an answer to a Parliamentary question to deal in detail with the preventive measures taken by the Ministry and the local authorities concerned, but I have reason to believe that they are satisfactory and that a very large percentage of the total number of cases of diphtheria have been removed for isolation and treatment to the hospitals of the Metropolitan Asylums Board.

Oral Answers to Questions — IRAQ.

ARAB PRISONERS.

Mr. L. MALONE: 70.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies the number of Arabs from Iraq now in prison or in internment in Ceylon or elsewhere?

Mr. CHURCHILL: So far as my information goes, the only Iraq Arab, apart from those convicted of criminal offences, and consequently not covered by the recent general amnesty, who can be described as in prison or in internment outside of Iraq, is Saiyid Talib, concerning whom a reply was given to the hon. Member yesterday. He is about to proceed to take waters at a spa in Southern Europe.

OVERSEAS TRADE.

Major GLYN: 72.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what steps have been taken to encourage British capital to be invested in the necessary development of British Crown Colonies and Protectorates in such manner as to give employment at home and to increase the market for British goods overseas as a result of the prosperity consequent upon such development; and whether it is due to the absence of the necessary guarantee as to security by the British Government backing the proposals of the local governments for approved schemes that the investment of private capital is discouraged?

Mr. CHURCHILL: All schemes submitted to me by local governments or private individuals are carefully considered. In particular, the Colonies and Protectorates are being encouraged to place in this country orders for machinery and other supplies required for development. I have had submitted to me development proposals for the investment of private capital involving a guarantee by His Majesty's Government, and the applicants have been advised to submit these schemes to the Trade Facilities Advisory Committee, whose province it is to consider them.

OPIUM TRAFFIC, NORTH BORNEO.

Mr. J. W. WILSON: 77.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the government of North Borneo issues licences to private traders for the
sale of opium to the labourers on the plantations; whether there is no legislative limit to the amount of opium which may be sold to the coolies; and whether he will ask the Chartered Company of North Borneo to supply His Majesty's Government with a return showing to what extent the revenue of the country has benefited during the last five years by the sale of the drug?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I understand that the sale of prepared opium (chandu) in the territory of the British North Borneo Company is not permitted except by duly licenced persons who are subject to very stringent regulations and liable to severe penalties for their infringement. There is no legislative limit to the amount of Government prepared opium which may be purchased, but by virtue of the administrative measures instituted by the Government for the control of the traffic, consumers are practically rationed to a moderate rate of consumption. It is an offence for any person to have in his possession any prepared opium other than Government prepared opium. I am informed that, as a result of the close supervision exercised by the Government, there has been a substantial decrease in consumption per capita in recent years. As regards the last part of the question, I will make inquiry of the Company.

Sir J. D. REES: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that for many coolies from malarious districts in the East a supply of opium is necessary as a medicine to keep them in health?

Mr. SPEAKER: That is a matter for argument.

TREATMENT OF CHILDREN (HONG KONG).

Mr. CHARLES EDWARDS: 80.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether there are any legislative limits to the ages at which girls in Hong Kong may be transferred for a money payment from one person to another for domestic and other services?

Mr. CHURCHILL: No, Sir; the whole system is not recognised by the law of the Colony and is, therefore, not regulated by legislation.

Lieut.-Colonel J. WARD: Why do you not put it down?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I think my hon. and gallant Friend is quite entitled to raise this question, and when an opportunity occurs I shall be very glad to ascertain what the general sense of the House is upon it. I am anxious that hon. Members should know what is the case for not violently overturning this custom which is universal throughout China.

Lieut.-Colonel WARD: It was stated to the House only yesterday that this practice has been condemned. As it has been under the consideration of the Colonial Office since 1880, I should imagine that we are not really hurrying the matter.

Mr. CHURCHILL: It may sound very objectionable in principle, but I believe that in practice it is not so prejudicial.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Has the right hon. Gentleman not seen the accounts in the papers of the cruelty upon these children as the result of this practice?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I shall be very glad if my hon. and gallant Friend will send me any information which he has upon this question.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL AIR FORCE.

AEROPLANES AND ENGINES.

Mr. RAPER: 81.
asked the Secretary of State for Air what types of aeroplanes and engines are at present in use in the Royal Air Force; and how many of these types were designed before or during 1918?

The SECRETARY of STATE for AIR (Captain Guest): As the answer is rather long, I will, with my hon. Friend's permission, circulate the information in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
The following is the answer
The following are the types of aeroplanes and engines at present in use in the Royal Air Force. With the exception of the "Vickers Vernon," "Vickers Ambulance," "Fairey 3.D. Seaplane," and "Westland Walrus" machines, all the above aeroplanes and engines were designed before or during 1918.

Aeroplanes.

Avro 504.K.
Snipe.
Bristol Fighter.
D.H.9.A.
D. H.10.
Vickers Vimy.
Vickers Vernon.
Vickers Ambulance.
F.2.A. Flying Boat.
F.5 Flying Boat.
Fairey 3.D. Seaplane.
Westland Walrus.
Sopwith Cuckoo.
Panther.
Ships Camel.
Nieuport Nighthawk.
Sopwith Salamander.

Engines.

B.R.II.
B.R.I.
Hispano Suiza (Viper 1).
Liberty.
Mono.
Napier Lion (II).
Rolls Royce. (Falcon 3).
Rolls Royce (Eagle 8).

ARMOURED CARS, IRELAND.

Lieut.-Colonel POWNALL: 82.
asked the Secretary of State for Air whether, in place of spending £50,000 in the purchase of armoured cars for Trans-Jordania, he will arrange to use some of those which have been employed in Ireland?

Captain GUEST: Arrangements have already been made with the Irish Office to take over on repayment a number of the armoured cars until recently employed in Ireland, with a view to obviating, so far as possible, the purchase of new vehicles.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH ARMY.

IRISH REGIMENTS (DISBANDMENT).

Sir MAURICE DOCKRELL: 83.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether he can arrange that the names of the famous Irish regiments about to be disbanded shall be perpetuated by incorporation with those of other famous regiments which it is not intended to disband?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for WAP (Lieut.-Colonel Sir R. Sanders): I do not think that this is a practicable suggestion.

Sir M. DOCKRELL: That is a very unsympathetic answer.

WAR GRAVES.

Mr. GILBERT: 84.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether any contract has been entered into by the Graves Commission for the supply of tombstones or any material for British graveyards in France and Belgium or any other country with any German firm or contractors; and can he state, generally, from what countries the material is being supplied for these graveyards?

Sir R. SANDERS: The answer to the first part of the hon. Member's question is in the negative. Headstones for British graves in France and Belgium, where the great majority are situated, are all manufactured in, and supplied from, Great Britain and Ireland; headstones for Italy, Palestine, Egypt, and part of Macedonia are made of Italian marble and supplied from Italy. The building material is usually obtained locally.

FOOT-AND-MOUTH DISEASE.

Mr. DOYLE: 88.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether and, if so, what scientific tests have been applied to ascertain the cause and supply a remedy for foot-and-mouth disease; whether the source of the present outbreak has been ascertained; what areas are chiefly affected; what is the total number of animals slaughtered to date, cattle, sheep, and pigs, and the value thereof; whether his attention has been called to the reported increase of 2d. per lb. for beef, mutton, and pork in Newcastle-on-Tyne; and whether there is any justification for increased retail prices in this city and the country generally?

Sir A. BOSCAWEN: For many years-this disease has been the subject of continued research by the best veterinarians in Continental countries where the desease is endemic, but without success. A Committee of scientific men was appointed by my predecessor to undertake a careful research into the nature of the disease, but this Committee, after a year's exhaustive work, had made no progress and did not recommend the continuance of the investigation. I am proposing now to invite international co-operation in an
inquiry. The origin of the present outbreak has not been definitely ascertained. The most heavily infected areas are, briefly, Yorkshire, Northumberland, Durham, Cheshire, Lancashire, Westmorland, and the Clyde Valley. The total numbers of animals which have been slaughtered or whose slaughter has been authorised are 13,530 cattle, 2,905 sheep, 5,342 pigs, and 30 goats. The value of these animals is approximately £420,000. I am aware that in certain markets a rise has occurred in the price of meat. This is probably due to the disturbed state of the trade, but the Ministry places no restrictions on the movement of fat stock to the butcher for slaughter, and there should, therefore, be no general shortage of meat. Moreover, carcases of animals which on slaughter are found not to be affected with foot-and-mouth disease are dressed for food, and in view of the very small fraction of the cattle population which it has been necessary to slaughter there is no justification for increased retail prices in the country generally.

Major WHELER: Is there not a general belief that these outbreaks originated in Ireland? Has the right hon. Gentleman been able to take any effective steps to inquire whether there is any disease in the South or West of Ireland?

Sir A. BOSCAWEN: Yes, Sir. I have been making inquiries, and up to the present I have not been able to trace the disease in Ireland. But as a precaution, as I have already informed the House, I have stopped the importation of animals from Ireland except for the purpose of immediate slaughter.

Mr. J. W. WILSON: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us without notice what is the proportion generally of those dressed for the market and those destroyed, with a view to allaying the public idea that 18,000 carcases have already been destroyed on the market?

Sir A. BOSCAWEN: I cannot give the detailed figures without notice, but the great majority of the animals slaughtered are contact animals and therefore fitted for food.

Mr. J. W. WILSON: It does not affect the price then?

Mr. RHYS DAVIES: Is any compensation paid in these cases for the animals destroyed?

Sir A. BOSCAWEN: Yes, full compensation is paid for animals destroyed, and it was based on the value of the animals before the disease broke out.

UNFIT HORSES (EXPORT).

Brigadier-General COLVIN: 89.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he is aware of the continued cruelty to, and suffering of, horses exported to Belgium for butchery; and whether he will take drastic measures to prevent a continuation of the barbarities connected with this trade?

Sir A. BOSCAWEN: No. Sir. In view of the stringent regulations governing the exportation of horses which are now in force, I cannot agree that horses which are shipped to the Continent are subjected to cruelty or suffering. I am, however, prepared to institute an inquiry into any specific allegations of cruelty which may be brought to my notice.

Brigadier-General COLVIN: Is it not the fact that many of these horses are taken a very considerable distance before they are slaughtered, and that often the methods of slaughter are very primitive and brutal?

Sir A. BOSCAWEN: Yes, but I cannot be responsible for what happens on the other side. All I can do is to see that no cruelty is involved in shipping the animals or in transporting them.

Lieut.-Colonel A. MURRAY: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the policy of slaughtering on this side is proceeding satisfactorily? That is a very important point.

Sir A. BOSCAWEN: Yes, Sir, to a very large extent the policy of slaughtering on this side and exporting the carcases is taking the place of sending out live animals.

Sir W. DAVISON: Has an agreement been arrived at with Belgium on the same lines as that with France?

Sir A. BOSCAWEN: Yes, Sir. The Belgium authorities are willing to accept the carcases of animals slaughtered on this side, on practically the same terms as the French.

Sir J. BUTCHER: Can the right hon. Gentleman assure us that the horses are always slaughtered on this side unless they are really fit to travel and work?

Sir A. BOSCAWEN: The law that no horses can be exported unless they are fit both to travel and to work is most rigorously carried out.

Mr. HURD: Has the right hon. Gentleman taken any steps to get into touch with the Belgian Government and to represent to them the difficulty of the situation unless they co-operate with the British Government in securing humane methods of slaughter in Belgium?

Sir A. BOSCAWEN: Yes, I have been in touch with the Belgian Government for the last six months.

Mr. HURD: With what effect?

Sir A. BOSCAWEN: Very good effect.

Mr. HURD: What has been the result?

Sir A. BOSCAWEN: I have already told the House that the Belgian Government now allow animals to be imported after slaughter on this side.

Mr. HURD: That is not my point.

AUSTRIA (ALLIED ASSISTANCE).

Mr. GRANT: (by Private Notice) asked the Prime Minister whether an agreement has been come to by the Allied Powers to assist financially the Austrian Government; and, if so, to what extent this country is involved; and, further, if there is to be full Allied control in Austria over the expenditure of such monies as may be advanced?

Mr. YOUNG: The Austrian Government, in co-operation with the Financial Committee of the League of Nations has proposed a scheme for the grant of private credits to Austria, the execution of which is delayed because the liens on Austrian assets in respect of Reparation and Relief Credits have not yet been released by the Governments concerned. In order to enable Austria in the meanwhile to continue its programme of financial reconstruction with an assurance of reasonable stability for the exchange value of the kroner, His Majesty's Government have agreed to make an advance of £2,000,000
to Austria. By agreement with the Austrian Government the expenditure from the loan is to be controlled in Vienna by Mr. G. M. Young on behalf of the British Treasury. It is understood that the Italian Government are considering the grant of a credit to Austria, and that the French Government are asking the French Parliament to vote the funds required for an advance of 50,000,000 francs to Austria with a similar object, and that the Czecho-Slovak Government propose to make an advance of 500,000,000 Czech crowns. The Finance Committee of the League of Nations will be meeting very shortly to consider the situation created by the grant of these new credits.

Mr. GRANT: Is the official who is, I take it, to advise the Austrian Government in this matter, to have control or simply to be an adviser, and will the money to be advanced by this country be under the control of ourselves or the Allied Powers?

Mr. YOUNG: The functions and the powers of the official to whom I have referred will be more than those of an adviser. They will be those of a substantial controller.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: What security have you got?

Mr. YOUNG: The only specific security beyond the ordinary security is that of the Gobelin tapestries.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: In that case are we assured that when the general loan is made to Austria, this higher loan of £2,000,000 will be on exactly the same footing of security as the subsequent loans.

Mr. YOUNG: The answer to the question is in the affirmative. That is so.

Sir J. D. REES: Has the League of Nations or its Finance Committee any power to commit the British Government in respect of any such matter as this?

Mr. YOUNG: None whatever, nor indeed has it done so.

Lord R. CECIL: Can the hon. Gentleman say what Governments have released the liens or have not released them?

Mr. YOUNG: I could not give that information

EGYPT (ZAGHLOUL PASHA).

Mr. MILLS: (by Private Notice) asked the Prime Minister whether he has now any knowledge of the serious state of health of Zaghloul Pasha, the deported leader of the Egyptian Waft or national delegation; whether he has considered the possible consequences of the death of this man in exile, and its possible cost to the British taxpayer in repressing inevitable outbreaks due to national resentment?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I do not know when or where the hon. Member sent his notice of question, but I regret to say that it did not reach me and, therefore, I have not been able to give an answer. I will be glad if he will give notice again.

Mr. MILLS: I dated the time of the letter at noon to-day.

ESTIMATES COMMITTEE.

Mr. MARRIOTT: (by Private Notice) asked the Lord Privy Seal whether he has now considered the setting up at once of an Estimates Committee, without prejudice to the larger questions of the financial procedure of the House?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Yes, Sir, I have considered what I think is the evident general sense of the House in favour of setting up an Estimates Committee, and I have asked my hon. and gallant Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Colonel Leslie Wilson) to arrange to take the necessary steps. I do this, as my hon. Friend has suggested, without prejudice to the further considerations of the larger proposal which I suggested to the House.

Mr. MARRIOTT: I am sure the House Is very much obliged.

NOTICES OF MOTION.

ROYAL NAVY (AIR SERVICE).

On going into Committee of Supply on the Navy Estimates, to call attention to the serious position of the Admiralty in not being in control of their own Air Service, and to move a Resolution.—[Rear-Admiral Sir R. Hall.]

ARMY ORGANISATION.

On going into Committee of Supply on the Army Estimates, to call attention to the necessity for a review of the administrative and directing organisation of the Defence Forces, and to move a Resolution.—[Lieut.-General Sir A. Hunter-Weston.]

ELEEMOSYNARY EXPENDITURE.

On going into Committee of Supply on the Civil Services Estimates, to call attention to the alarming increase in the expenditure of an eleemosynary character, and to move a Resolution.—[Sir J. D. Rees.]

ARMY PROMOTION.

On going into Committee of Supply on the Army Estimates, to call attention to the method of promotion in the Army and to move a Resolution.—[Mr. Grundy.]

BANK DEPOSITS.

On going into Committee of Supply on the Civil Services Estimates, to call attention to the serious lack of facilities for the security of the deposits of poor persons in banks and to move a Resolution.—[Mr. Mills.]

Ex-SERVICE MEN, CIVIL SERVICE.

On going into Committee of Supply on the Civil Services Estimates, to call attention to the need of employing ex-service men in the Civil Service and to move a Resolution.—[Mr. J. H. Edwards.]

STRIKE BALLOTS.

On going into Committee of Supply on the Civil Services Estimates, to call attention to the faulty manner in which ballots are taken on strikes and to move a Resolution.—[Mr. Dennis Herbert.]

ECONOMY.

On going into Committee of Supply on the Civil Services Estimates, to call attention to the necessity of economy and to move a Resolution.—[Mr. Grant.]

LOWER DECK (ROYAL NAVY).

On going into Committee of Supply on the Navy Estimates, to call attention to the grievances of the lower deck and to move a Resolution.—[Mr. Adamson.]

NAVAL OFFICERS, MARRIAGE ALLOWANCE.

On going into Committee of Supply on the Navy Estimates, to call attention to the question of marriage allowances to naval officers and to move a Resolution.—[Sir B. Falle.]

BRITISH EMPIRE EXHIBITION.

On going into Committee of Supply on the Civil Services Estimates, to call attention to the proposed expenditure of the Board of Trade on the British Empire Exhibition and to move a Resolution.—[Sir J. Remnant.]

CIVIL AVIATION.

On going into Committee of Supply on Air Estimates, to call attention to civil aviation and to move a Resolution.—[Mr. L. Malone.]

CHILD SLAVERY, HONG KONG.

On going into Committee of Supply on the Colonial Office Estimates, to call attention to child slavery in Hong Kong and to move a Resolution.—[Lieut.- Colonel J. Ward.]

CIVIL SERVANTS (CIVIL RIGHTS).

On going into Committee of Supply on the Civil Services Estimates, to call attention to the question of the civil rights of Government servants and to move a Resolution.—[Mr. A. Short.]

PENSIONS ADMINISTRATION.

On going into Committee of Supply on the Civil Services Estimates, to call attention to the administration of the Ministry of Pensions and to move a Resolution.—[Captain Bowyer.]

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.

INDIAN AFFAIRS: That they communicate that they have come to the following Resolution: "That it is desirable that a Committee of Eleven Lords be appointed to join with a Committee of Eleven Members to be appointed by the House of Commons as a Standing Joint Committee on Indian Affairs."

DISEASES OF ANIMALS (SCOT- LAND) BILL,

"to transfer the powers and duties of the Ministry of Agriculture under the
Diseases of Animals Acts, 1894 to 1914, so far as they relate to Scotland, to the Board of Agriculture for Scotland," presented by Lieut.-Colonel ARTHUR MURRAY; supported by Major Mackenzie Wood; to be read a Second time upon Monday, 27th February, and to be printed. [Bill 33.]

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE (GOVERNMENT BUSINESS).

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN (Leader of the House): I beg to move
That, until the end of the financial year, Government Business do have precedence at every Sitting.
I have not moved the Motion first on the Paper relating to the suspension of the 11 o'clock rule, but I move the second Motion, asking the House to give to the Government the time which would otherwise be allotted to private Members up to the close of the financial year. There is no duty which falls to my lot in my present position which is more distasteful to me, or I suppose was even more distasteful to the many predecessors who have had to do the same thing, than that of asking for the sacrifice of what is called private Members' time. But the circumstances of the year leave me no choice. I shall not argue the merits of Bills or particular Votes, but there is one Bill—the Irish Bill—which, for reasons already stated, and for reasons which can be amplified to-morrow, we regard as of the utmost urgency in the interests of peace and good order. In addition to that Bill, there is a large mass of financial business which must be concluded before the close of the financial year. Not only must the whole of it be concluded before the end of the financial year, but, in order to conform with the law, a portion of it must be concluded before the end of this month.
There are about a half-dozen Supplementary Estimates which must be voted, and,the sum so voted embodied in a Consolidated Fund Bill, in time for that Bill to receive the Royal Assent not later than the 28th of this month, in order that there may be money available to pay for services in compliance with the terms of Acts in force. There are five Votes which are essential before 28th February. They are the Votes for the Royal Irish Constabulary, small charges on the Local Loans Fund, a rather larger charge on the Land Purchase Fund, to carry out the provisions of the Government of Ireland Act, and Votes for Superannuation in the Customs and other Departments.
Of course, it will be very desirable to get other Votes in, if we can manage it, but those mentioned are necessary in order to comply with the provisions of the law. When we have dealt with them, we have,
before the end of the financial year, to take the rest of the Supplementary Estimates, to move Mr. Speaker out of the Chair on going into Committee of Supply, to take Votes on Account for the Army, the Navy, and also for the Air Force—an additional service for which we did not take a separate Vote until quite recently—and a Vote on Account for the Civil Service. All of these also must be passed in time to be included in a Consolidated Fund Bill, and to become law before 31st March.
In these circumstances, there are really only two courses which would be open to us, and I think I have chosen the course which, however distasteful it may be to the House, is the less distasteful of the two alternatives. The one is to ask for private Members' time as I am doing, and the other is to bring in a drastic timetable governing the dates by which all the Supplementary Estimates must be voted. I am sure that such a Motion as that would be most distasteful to the House under any circumstances, and particularly so in the present financial conditions. I ought to say a general word in regard to these Supplementary Estimates. From the point of view of a Government and of the Treasury in particular, Supplementary Estimates are anathema maranatha. To the Treasury they are objectionable as upsetting the financial forecasts of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and his Budget estimates of expenditure, and of the balance which he will secure on the year. To Governments as Governments they are objectionable, because they afford the finest opportunity yet exploited by Parliamentary ingenuity for lengthy and—shall I say?—tedious discussions. They occupy a great deal of time, and they necessarily impede the programme of the Government for the Session.
It is, therefore, our desire at all times to reduce them to the utmost limit. Two years ago there were something like 100 such Estimates. Last year there were 70 or 75. This year we have 26 outstanding. Taking into account all those which were passed in the autumn, the number is again reduced to, I think, 55. Some people with short memories and short experience appear to think that there was a halcyon time before the War when no such things as Supplementary Estimates were known. I see that the right hon. Member for Peebles (Sir D.
Maclean) is pickling a rod for me, and in case he should fall into that error, I would remind him that in the three years before the War, with no such obligations occurring as have necessarily followed upon the close of that struggle, the Government of the day found it impossible to do with fewer than 32 Supplementary Estimates a year on an average. I do not think it is a matter for any criticism that there are 55 in the current year.

Sir D. MACLEAN: What is your average?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I have not worked out the average, but two years ago the total was 102; last year it was 70, and this year it is 55. I do not think that those figures, immediately following post-War circumstances, compare unfavourably with the average of 32 in normal times, when there were no exceptional disturbing factors, and when you might presume that the expenditure of the year could have been estimated with as much accuracy as is ever possible at a time when Estimates are drawn. There is another important observation I must make. It can be no surprise to the House that there are heavy Supplementary Estimates this year, for in the Budget statement made by me on behalf of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and in subsequent explanation, we enumerated a series of services for which money would be necessary, and for which money was provided in the Budget, but for which we could give no Estimates at that moment.
The great disturbing factors of the year have been Ireland, the dispute in the coal trade, and the railway agreement. Payment had to be made earlier than was anticipated, under that agreement, of a very large sum in the current year. We anticipated in the Budget that there would be something like £90,000,000 required to meet the Supplementary Estimates which we foresaw but could not minutely or correctly submit at that moment. Had it not been for the railway agreement and the earlier payment, the £90,000,000 would have been sufficient. As it is, the agreement brings the amount rather above that figure. That is as much as I need or ought to say, for I must not go into particulars at this moment. It is a general defence of the programme which the Government have submitted, and unless it be held that we could have
avoided the presentation of these Estimates, I do not think it would be possible to suggest any better method of finding the time required for their discussion and for the Irish Bill.

Mr. CLYNES: The right hon. Gentleman has moved this Motion with the reluctance usually displayed by all right hon. Gentlemen who have to submit proposals to this House either for the curtailment or the complete destruction of the established rights of private Members. He will not, therefore, be astonished at some resistance being offered to the proposal which he has submitted. I think he has chosen the least reasonable and the least fair of the several alternatives open to him for getting through the necessary business within the stipulated time. The Session began a week late. Private Members were not to blame for that. I cannot recall whether any public announcement was made as to the reason why the House was called not on the date originally fixed but a week later than that date, but assume that there are reasons for that forfeiture of a week of Parliamentary time, private Members of the House ought not to be made to suffer, in the deprivation of their rights, on account of that postponement, for which I conclude the Government alone was responsible. I grant that there may have been circumstances, but those circumstances themselves ought not to involve the destruction of the private rights of Members of the House. Numerous, indeed, exceptionlly large as is the official following of Ministers in this House, the majority of the regular attendants of the House after all are private Members and they do, in their public work, and particularly when seeking the support of the electors, give definite assurance to the electors of certain things that they will try to do. It means that all these promises and assurances to the electorate are turned to nought and Members are finding more and more, when they come to the House, that they are deprived almost entirely of the use and exercise of the personal freedom which formerly Members of the House enjoyed. I think it will become commonly known in the constituencies that no matter what individual initiative a Member may display, no matter how full of honesty of purpose and of anxiety to serve his constituents, when he comes here he is
simply fixed as a small item in the general mosaic of Government purpose, and that he is totally deprived of any kind of individual freedom as representing his constituency. We have within the last few days been balloting. Some 15 or 10 minutes of the time of the House to-day was taken up in seeing how far individual Members of the House could emerge from the test of the Ballot to secure for themselves an opportunity to bring forward certain questions. What a waste of time in itself that was.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The right hon. Gentleman has fallen into an error. The Ballot to-day was on the Motions to go into Committee of Supply. That is Government time. That is not taken away by the Motion to take away private Members' time.

Mr. CLYNES: What I had in mind was the fact that the effect of this Motion, as I understand it, is to take from Members of the House the opportunity of some six or seven Fridays on which they would have a right to bring forward the Bills for which they have been balloting.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: It takes away Fridays, but it does not affect the Motion of which notice has been given pursuant to the Ballot to which the right hon. Gentleman alluded, and which has been held to-day.

Mr. CLYNES: I referred to the procedure of to-day's Ballot only because in my mind it was like that of the ballots which had preceded it and which were intended to secure for Members the right of bringing forward their Bills and their Motions. In addition to being deprived of some six or seven Fridays on which they were to have had by the procedure of the Ballot the opportunity to bring forward Bills, the effect of this Motion will be also to deprive private Members of some 13 or 14 opportunities which ought to be left to bring forward Motions to initiate discussion and to test the opinion of the House on some very important subjects. That is really taking a large slice out of the time which traditionally has been allotted to private Members. The right hon. Gentleman considered—it was the only argument he offered—that in making these inroads upon the rights of private Members he was adopting the best of the different alternatives open
to him. I suggest the contrary. I suggest that the very worst thing you can do relation to the business of Parliament is to so muzzle its Members who have technically, and through the luck of the Ballot, established a right to bring forward a proposal as to make a mockery of their ballot and totally to deprive them of the opportunity of introducing their questions and say that it was all done in the interest of imperative and pressing public business. If the Government cannot better arrange the time of this House, the agenda, the general duration of speeches, the apportionment of time and opportunity for the disposal of definite pieces of business than it is now doing, it ought really to get together some sort of Committee of Investigation, nonparty and representative, to decide the best way of retaining the rights of private Members consistent with the due disposal of pressing public business within the allotted time. If without a hint from the Chair, without any express condition and understanding, which will be loyally and, I think, generally observed, that speeches on the various questions which have to be disposed of should be made shorter than usual, a condition which I would suggest should apply especially to those of us on the Front Bench on both sides of the House, that I am sure would not do any damage in quality to the general disposal and completion of public business and it would at least help to retain for many private Members the rights which they have won for themselves in the Ballot and which have been long established. If that alternative finds no favour with the representatives of the Government, why not meet a little earlier? Why not, in short, do anything except what I say is taking away the rights of private Members.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Earlier in the day?

Mr. CLYNES: That is my meaning. In regard to Friday, a must convenient change has been made. It does not mean sitting longer or shorter, but that slight re-arrangement in the time of beginning the work and of concluding it has very considerable advantages, especially for Members who have to travel great distances. But if the time of the House, from the standpoint of definite Government business, requires the treatment and completion of certain questions, that
time should be secured by some means other than almost the complete destruction of the long established rights of private Members. I suggest that course because, whoever the Member may be, he has a sense of his representative importance, he is sent by a constituency, he comes usually after a long record of local public service, or of work in, perhaps, even a larger sphere, and one thing that tends to make Members tired of this kind of Parliamentary work is the manner in which they are so completely suppressed by party and Governmental machinery, and at least this does not tend to the improvement of tempers. Members will be disposed, perhaps, to speak less often if they could be sure that their individual rights as private Members of the House were fully respected, and that when they have won for themselves the chance to bring forward a Bill or Motion to ventilate some question not otherwise dealt with in the Government programme it is probable that they would in the end turn out to be all the better Members of Parliament than they are by the methods so far followed by the Government.

Sir F. BANBURY: Is not the House nearly always empty on a Friday?

Mr. CLYNES: That is very often the case, but it is often the case when Government business is before the House on a Friday. It may be, indeed it is true, that only a minority of Members can have these opportunities, but the fact that they do not constitute a majority in the House is no reason for depriving them of the rights which I am endeavouring to maintain. This is a most serious inroad that has become not a temporary departure from common Parliamentary practice. We accept it every Session, we have to suffer it. The right hon. Gentleman is able to taunt the right hon. Member for Peebles (Sir D. Maclean) with the fact that in the years before the War the Government of that day had to take some course similar to that now proposed. The fact is that during the War private Members readily agreed to forfeiture of their privilege. They accepted almost anything that was proposed without demur. In 1919 Members' rights were very severely curtailed, and again in 1921, and indeed it may be said that from 1914 until the present year there has been an exhibition of very great toleration and great patience on the part of Members, who
have had to meet these attacks upon what is a reasonable apportionment of the time of private Members. I do not think in the end anything is gained by seeking to arrange the Parliamentary agenda upon these lines. What will it mean for instance to-day? It means that perhaps for some hours we shall be debating the question whether this Government procedure is right or fair, and in the end there will be a test in the Lobby and a very large number of Members who do not like it will support the Government, and in so doing will be trampling upon their own rights. They must do it because they are expected loyally to follow the lead given to them by the Government of the day. The minority will fell sore and will feel wronged. They will be in a frame of mind less suited to reasonable attention to the business of the House when it is brought forward. I seriously suggest, therefore, that an outlet must be found, that indeed the time has come for a departure entirely from this practice of trying to govern the country by executive action only. Either the House of Commons, as a collection of individual Members, must be allowed to exert its influence upon public policy, upon the new proposals and questions of initiative, or private Members must be told that they could just as well remain away from the House and leave the management of the country's affairs to the Cabinet, which sits in private, and to the general executive machine, which will work its own way in spite of whatever may be the will of the mass of Members sent here from the constituencies. There is, therefore, a very substantial reason for asking the right hon. Gentleman, if he cannot completely withdraw this Motion, seriously to modify it in order that, at least, Fridays may be retained for Members who by ballot have already secured their right to introduce their various Motions.

Sir D. MACLEAN: The dire effects of the Government's management of business is already apparent by the appearance of the House to-day. Hon, Members have become so accustomed to the military methods of the Government, and so conscious are they that no matter what protest they may make they will be overruled, that they have disappeared from the Chamber and are otherwise engaged, waiting for the Division bells, whenever they may happen to ring. I remember the days, not many years ago, when on
such a Motion as this you would have had the House crowded with indignant Members seeking to maintain their rights against the executive, and in many material respects succeeding in so maintaining them. To-day, the result of the War practice carried on into so-called peace is evident. The great mass of Members have given up interest in the proceedings of the House. They simply come in here when there is a show Debate, or some well-known rhetorical gladiator takes the field; but they absent themselves from the regular day-in and night-out hard work of the House. That is very largely due to such Motions as the one now before the House, which, ever since this Government took office, have become a normal part of the procedure of the House. I trust to demonstrate to what is left of reasoned acceptance of arguments on the Treasury Bench that they have no case for this Motion.
In the first place, Easter is very late this year. It has usually been an argument which has had some amount of force that an early Easter takes four or five necessary days of a Parliamentary week, and that has been given as a reason for such a Motion. That argument is completely out of our range to-day. Easter comes after the 31st March. It is often urged that there is very great pressure of legislation of a most necessary kind. On another occasion it was urged that they had 61 Supplementary Estimates to deal with. Last year we began very late, owing to our having sat up to Christmas in passing the Agriculture Act, which the Government repealed on the earliest opportunity. I propose to examine with a certain amount of detail what has happened in the last three years, and to compare it with the case now put before us by the Leader of the House. What was the position in 1919, when the Leader of the House asked for the whole time until the 31st March? It was urged because there was very great pressure of legislation, and also for the alteration of the Rules of Procedure. I remember very well that on that occasion I supported the Government, because I thought it was reasonable. The case made then was that the need for legislation was so great that we must accommodate the Rules of Procedure to the new needs. That was a very powerful argument, and the Government asked that the
whole time of the House should be taken until the House otherwise determined. On my suggestion, they limited the time to the 31st March, which is the date in the Motion proposed to-day. By the 13th March the Government had restored the Fridays. Fridays, the 21st and the 28th March, and the evening sittings on the 25th and 26th March were restored. The House did not sit on the 28th February, because there was no work to do.
What work did the House get through during that time? The Bill for the reelection of Ministers, involving matters of high constitutional merit, was very fully debated and passed; also the Aerial Navigation Act, the Local Elections (Expenses) Act, Returning Officers Expenses Act, and the Civil Contingencies Fund (Advances) Act. The Coal Industry Commission was set up after lengthy Debates. The Naval, Military and Air Forces Service Act, which continued conscription to a certain period; a Measure which was very fully debated on the Report Stage, the Second Reading, and the Third Reading; another very complicated Measure, the Increase of Rent and Mortgage Interest (Restriction) Act, and a little Bill relating to Ireland, the Summons and Process Service Act, were also passed. The following Bills received Second Reading: The Ministry of Health Bill; the Local Government (Ireland) Bill; the Transport Ministry Bill; the Public Health (Medical Treatment of Children) Bill; the War Charities (Scotland) Bill. The Army Annual Bill also received its Second Reading. In addition, the new Procedure Resolutions were passed. The Consolidated Fund Bill received its Third Reading on the 20th of March, 11 days before the end of the financial year.
What is there comparable in the present position with the position then? The Government with the greatest possible ease got through a programme of legislation which in normal times would have occupied a whole Session.

Sir F. BANBURY: Where was the Opposition?

Sir D. MACLEAN: The right hon. Baronet was here, and others of us were doing what we could to stem the tide of hasty legislation, some parts of which have already been repealed and other parts of which are awaiting repeal.
What happened in 1920? Private Members' time was not taken at all; there was no motion for that. How did the House behave, being free to act normally and reasonably without the whip and lash of the Resolution which my right hon. Friend has proposed? The Debate on the Address was concluded on the 13th February, a date almost identical with what has happened this Session. There were 61 Supplementary Estimates. We had the Third Reading of the Consolidated Fund Bill by the 25th March, and time was found to set up a Committee in regard to the taxation of war wealth On the 25th February a day was given to an Adjournment Motion regarding Constantinople. The following Acts were passed: War Emergency Laws Continuance, Coal Mines Emergency, and the Silver Coinage. The following Bills received Second Reading: Unemployment Insurance, Overseas Trade Credits and Insurance, and National Health Insurance. All the necessary financial business was also done. This happened in 1920, when no such Motion as the one now before the House was proposed.
Last year the Motion was proposed on the 22nd February, the reason being our late sitting in 1920. Last year Easter fell early and took away practically a Parliamentary week before the end of the financial year. Thirty-five Supplementary Estimates were presented, and the following legislation was passed: Unemployment Insurance, 1920 (Amendment), Act; Coal Mines Decontrol Act—a Measure which took a long time and ought to have taken even longer, the final stages being passed about 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning; German Reparations (Recovery) Act; the Ministry of Munitions and Ministry of Shipping (Cessation) Acts; and two Consolidated Fund Bills, the second of which was read a Third time on 20th March. We had two Saturday sittings. What is the position to-day? There are only 26 Supplementary Estimates, largely due to the fact that we wiped off several of them during the sitting which took place in November. I do not say that these Supplementary Estimates are contentious, but probably close examination will show several reasons why criticisms should be addressed to the proposals of the Government in this regard. At any
rate, we have only to deal with 26 Supplementary Estimates, as compared with 61 last year, and a larger number on another occasion.
5.0 P.M.
Therefore, I am driven to look at the Government's legislative programme for some reason for the appalling hurry which signalises the action of the right hon. Gentleman. The only evidence available is the King's Speech. The legislation in regard to Ireland is, of course, urgent. Two days have been given to the Second Reading. In any case, it is perfectly clear that the Committee stage cannot be very long, because it is a very short Bill. We cannot touch the Schedule. All that the House can do is to give the necessary powers for the real work in connection with it to the new Government in Ireland to be done in Ireland. When that is done it will come back here, not for real approval by this House, but for approval by the Executive. But the Irish legislation cannot take very long. Its real claim on the House will be the Second Reading and the Third Reading. The other stages must necessarily be short. So far as I am concerned they will not be prolonged an hour more than is really necessary. The sooner that Bill is on the Statute Book the better chance there will be of making progress towards peace in Ireland.
What is the rest of the programme? The Government propose to submit—they do not say whether by means of Resolution or Bill—some ideas which they have—I do not think it has gone very much further than that—with regard to the Reform of the House of Lords. I am quite sure about one thing. There is no hurry about that. In any ease they have got a long Session stretching before them into the shades of the autumn. At least, so they suggest. This urgency must be due to legislation. It cannot be owing to finance. That case has already disappeared. There is nothing but the normal finance, though I do not say that it will not be necessary to criticise it from the point of view of economy. So we are driven back to the question of the urgency of legislation. They propose to bring in a Bill relating to the establishment of an International Trade Corporation. That does not compare in any degree, either in the length of the Bill itself or in the Debate on it, with many of the Measures which I have already indicated
which were passed in any one of the three Sessions that have elapsed, but which were easily dealt with by the end of the financial year. Next, there is the policy of co-operation in Empire settlement and migration. Where is the special urgency with regard to that? Clearly it goes over until after the end of the financial year. Then we have a Bill to amend the Criminal Law Amendment Acts, 1885–1912. As to that I hope the House will put itself right with regard to the deep feelings of the country as to the way in which that attempted legislation last Session was dealt with. I am very glad to see this Bill, but there is no immediate urgency. Then there is a Bill relating to allotments. Where is the vital urgency of that, causing pressure on the time of the Government? I now come to the purple patch of legislative rhetoric towards the end of the King's Speech—
"There will be laid before the House a Bill to substitute the yearly audit for the half-yearly audit in the case of Rural District Councils and Boards of Guardians."
The Empire is not rocking to its base with the urgency of any Bills like that being taken. Where, then, is the case for my right hon. Friend's Motion? There is a Bill relating to real property and methods of land transfer, which I daresay will take a little time of the House, but not very much, and I hope most sincerely that that Bill will be passed for the sake of people who take small interests in land and for the sake of land reform generally. But there is no special urgency in the early stages. I have sought for some reasons for the Government attitude, and the only conclusion to which I can come is that the Government must have made up their minds to repeal a lot more of their legislation and that really is the fundamental cause of this hurry which my right hon. Friend has succeeded so admirably in disguising. A word now as to what the Leader of the House said in regard to Supplementary Estimates. He said that they were, on the records of the past, now getting right. Long before the War there was an average of about 32 compared with the minor crime of an average of 71. But not only is there a considerable difference between 32 and 71, but there is a very considerable difference also in amount, because the
total amount of Supplementary Estimates in the last three years has approximately exceeded £450,000,000.
As far as those Supplementary Estimates which, on financial requirements, must be passed, are concerned, that is a matter which my right hon. Friend has in his own hands. He can take them when he likes, but I hope that full time will be given to the Supplementary Estimates and that there will be full discussion on them before the end of the financial year. I make this suggestion as a demand, which the whole House is entitled to enforce on my right hon. Friend, that none of these Supplementary Estimates shall be taken after 11 o'clock at night. Some of the most important Estimates, running not only into many millions of pounds but committing the House to new policies, were taken after 11 o'clock, at 12 o'clock and sometimes 1 and 2 o'clock in the morning. The Leader of the House is making this great demand on the general body of Members. How is he going to treat us in the coming days of the Session with regard to the criticisms of finance generally, and of Supplementary Estimates in particular? Is he g[...]ing to continue the bad practice of last Session, and the Session before, and the first Session, and, no matter what protests are made by the Opposition Bench, supported by my right hon. Friend the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury) and by the hon Member for Oxford City (Mr. Marriott), and a few others, in spite of what we may say, is he determined to drive these Estimates through the House, whether they are for large amounts or whether they constitute new policy? What pledge will the Leader of the House give us to-day with regard to the financial business of the Session? Are we going to have a repetition of the Practice which is not only bad for this House but which has deeply shocked the country?
If members of the Government are under the impression that the country does not notice these things they are living in a fool's paradise. The country is taking careful notice of them, and it knows that hundreds of millions of pounds are constantly voted in this House without any discussion whatever. There is time to give this discussion if the Government adopt the suggestions which were made to the then Leader of the House in December, 1920. I said to
him—and I received a large measure of support from Members in different parts of the House—"Bring forward only legislation of a really vital character, legislation which you cannot avoid, and devote the whole time of the House with the exception of that to the consideration of finance." We know what happened. We know that with the whole time at the disposal of the Government, Ministers, owing to their weakness, are quite unable to form a barrier against the powerful heads of Departments, whose pigeonholes are stuffed with Bills awaiting the opportunity of passing them through a servile House backed by a slack executive. They know that with a slack executive they can pass all sorts of Bills. I remember the then Leader of the House agreeing that the real need was consideration of finance and public economy, and that legislation should be cut down to the narrowest limit, but he knows from his own experience, once the machinery begins to work it gives the old results, and Bills poured into the House last year and the Session before, and arrived on the Statute Book, which only add to departmental expense and are an irritation to the public and are of no benefit to the community.
What is my right hon. Friend going to do with regard to finance this year? Is he going to confine himself to a, very large vote on account and go to the country for a verdict? My right hon. Friend charged me the other day with a desire to snatch some place on the Treasury Bench, which I do not wish to do, and I am certain that he does not desire to hang on to office either, but the question remains—what use are the dying Government going to make of their last year? Are they going to make anything like a death-bed repentance on this question of finance and use their time in that way, because they may not only thus secure some mitigation of the condemnation of posterity, but may also do something for the individual Members of the Government. Perhaps it may be by some exercise of a last shred of recollection of what ought to be done that they will achieve some mitigation of their own position. Therefore I make an appeal to him on general grounds and on personal grounds to see if we cannot get something approaching a proper method of dealing with this urgent problem. My right hon. Friend yesterday stated that he
would set up a Select Committee. We all know what that means. So far as immediate action is concerned, it is relegated to limbo. Nothing comes of it. I do not question the power of the right hon. Gentleman to take the whole of the time of the House. Of course he can do what he likes. I have addressed some serious arguments to the Treasury Bench and there will be other arguments addressed to the Government, but how many Members who are going to vote will have heard those arguments, or have taken the slightest notice of, or interest in them? The House of Commons in its interest in the rights and duties of private Members, in what should be its watchfulness over public finance, has been killed by these constant Measures of the Government for giving the whole time of the House to the Executive. They are destroying initiative, reducing the value of personality in the House, and steam-rolling the Opposition time and time again, in the efforts which we have maintained ever since the very first day this Parliament met to preserve the framework of what an Opposition should be. Now the Government come down to the House with this Motion which has not the shred of a case to support it. Not on urgency of finance, not on urgency of legislation, not on any ground—I have shown by comparison with the three preceding Sessions of this Parliament—can they show cause for this Motion, yet it will be passed when it comes to a Division. In will come the well-trained battalions, taking no interest whatever in the arguments, and once again Parliament will lose an opportunity of exercising its free and unfettered control and criticism of legislation and administration, and one more blow will have been struck at the power and prestige of the House of Commons.

Sir F. BANBURY: I should like to congratulate the right hon. Gentleman who has just spoken on the latter part of his speech, in which he emphasised the necessity for more time being given to financial Debates in this House, and also to the need for cessation of the practice of taking Estimates of any sort, whether Supplementary or any other kind, after 11 o'clock at night. With that I completely agree, but do not his latter arguments do away with the force of the arguments which he used at first? The arguments which he used at first were
to the effect that the time of the House until the 31st March, which is the end of the financial year, should not be taken up by the Government, because of the interference with private Members which would be caused. After all, the 31st of March is only six weeks away; there are only six Fridays. It may be held that Parliament should have met sooner, but as a matter of fact it did not, and, personally, in view of what has taken place, I am inclined to think it could not have met sooner. What have we to do in those six weeks? We have to pass Votes A and 1 for the Army, Votes A and 1 for the Navy, a Vote on account for the Civil Service and somewhere about thirty Supplementary Estimates. [HON. MEMBERS: "Twenty-six!"] I have always held that there is nothing more important in this House than finance. At present, unquestionably, there is nothing more important, and all the Government are asking is that for the next six weeks private Members should agree to give up Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons and Fridays in order that financial questions and, I presume, the Irish Treaty Bill may be taken. Is that unreasonable?

Mr. HOGGE: What about getting it back?

Sir F. BANBURY: I think the House will get it back in the valuable work which they do on the financial question. The ordinary private Member's Friday, as those who have been any length of time in the House know, is always a waste of time. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no !"] Oh, yes, it is.

Dr. MURRAY: The Trade Union Bill is not a waste of time.

Sir F. BANBURY: I am sure it is, there is no question about that. We do not want any legislation in regard to trade unions except my Bill. Of course, if that is the Bill the hon. Member refers to, I admit it is not a waste of time. If it is any other Bill, I am sorry to say I do not agree. Look at the state of the House on a private Member's Friday. I do not care who is bringing in a Bill—it may be the hon. Members opposite—but the state of the House on a Friday, as everyone will admit, shows that no interest is being taken in the Bills. There may be 3 or 4 Members whose constituents are interested, and
there may be 3 or 4 others who know that the Bill which is being introduced is a very bad one, but where are all the others? They are not in the Smoking Room or the Library, or the Reading Room. They are not in the House at all. It is absurd to try to make out that there is a very great grievance in taking the time of the House between now and the 31st of next month. The right hon. Member for Platting (Mr. Clynes) made a lengthy oration, and if one had not known exactly what the Motion was, he might lead one to think that private Members' time during the whole of the Session was going to be taken. Private Members will get the usual time between 31st March and Whitsuntide.

Mr. HOGGE: No.

Sir F. BANBURY: They will get Wednesday instead of Tuesday.

Mr. HOGGE: And they will lose Friday.

Sir F. BANBURY: And a very good thing, too. It is astonishing the interest the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Peebles (Sir D. Maclean) has in this matter, but the moment he concluded his speech he went away. He did not stay to listen to the other arguments for or against, but having made the speech which it was necessary to make as Leader of the Opposition, he went away. It is the formal speech always made on these occasions. I have been 30 years in the House, and this speech is always made and always made with the same result and the same people who make those speeches would do exactly the same thing themselves if they were sitting on the other side of the House. I can conceive the right hon. Member for Peebles making an equally good speech in favour of the Motion, as that which he has made against it. There are one or two small matters to which I should like to allude. It has been said that the Schedule to the Irish Treaty cannot be touched. I should not care to say anything on this very important matter, but I think the Schedule can be amended, and certainly attempts will be made to amend it.

Mr. HOGGE: No, it cannot be amended.

Sir F. BANBURY: I am sorry to hear it.

Mr. HOGGE: That is why it is done in that way.

Sir F. BANBURY: I do not know if I am transgressing the rules of Order in going into this matter at all, but it has an influence on the question of whether or not time should be taken, because if the Schedule cannot be amended there will not be so much time taken. I always understood that the Schedule to a Treaty with a foreign country could not be amended, but Ireland is not yet a foreign country. It probably will be very soon, and we must be very careful as to what we do, but up to the present moment Ireland is not a foreign country, and therefore you cannot make a Treaty with it. This is an agreement and not a Treaty; it is not made with a foreign country, and therefore I think the ordinary rules of the House apply, and will enable the Schedule to be amended, as all Schedules can be amended in an ordinary Bill. I congratulate the Government upon having taken what I think is a very necessary step, and I hope in consideration of the support which I have given to them by my voice, and will give -to them by my vote in the Lobby, that they will remember my request that they should not take Supplementary Estimates or any financial business after 11 o'clock, and that full opportunity should be given to us to discuss financial matters.

Mr. G. LOCKER-LAMPSON: Although I generally agree with my right hon. Friend who has just spoken in matters of finance, I absolutely disagree with nearly every single word he has said this evening about the rights of private Members. It is a curious thing that we have been debating for an hour and a half the rights of private Members, and all the time it has practically been a discussion between the two front Benches. I do not regard my right hon. Friend the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury) as a back-Bencher. He is entitled to sit upon the front Bench, and sometimes does so. Therefore up to the present moment not a single private Member has had an opportunity of making his voice heard. I think we have to guard ourselves just as much against the front Opposition Bench as against the Government front Bench. I noticed that two right hon. Gentlemen followed each other from the Opposition front Bench, and that no private Member had a chance of getting his argument in. I am sorry the Government have been so
tyrannical. We are sometimes told that this Government contains a greater number of geniuses than any Government which has ever existed. It may be true, but one sometimes pays a little too dearly for these enormous intellects, and I was very disappointed this afternoon at the attitude taken up by the Lord Privy Seal. We are told by the Standing Orders that private Members are to have Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and yet year after year—it has practically become a hardy annual—these days are taken from them. What is the use of having Standing Orders if this is done? The House had better revise the Standing Orders and wipe out the provision which says that private Members should have these particular days. The Lord Privy Seal said it was very distasteful to him to make this announcement. I never saw anybody perform a painful operation with a more cheerful countenance than my right hon. Friend. He says we have had full warning. I do not think that is any excuse at all. The real reason why private Members have to suffer is bad budgeting. It is owing to the fact that the Government are not able to forecast the enormous additional expenditure for which they are compelled to ask the House, time and again. I suggest that before they take away private Members' time they ought to look more carefully into their own budgeting and into the way in which they ask the House to sit from time to time. The right hon. Member for Platting pointed out quite fairly that had we met a week or ten days earlier this Motion would not have been necessary. I have handed in an Amendment to the Chair. I do not, know whether some other hon. Member may not have preceded me, but if so I will not move.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. James Hope): The first Amendment I have here is to insert the words "Tuesdays and Wednesdays."

Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: Will not that Amendment rather limit discussion? May I mention what my Amendment is? I will not move it now, but its effect is to add the words
and that the days allotted under the Standing Orders to private Members before Easter, be added to the usual time given to private Members after Easter.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I was proposing to call the hon. Member who had the prior Amendment first, but the hon. Member for Wood Green can raise his point now if he wishes.

Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: It is no good raising it if it cannot be moved as an Amendment. Do I understand that it will be completely cut out if the other Amendment is moved, and rejected or accepted?

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The Amendment which I was proposing to call next would not shut out the hon. Member.

Mr. LOCKER - LAMPSON: Perhaps I had better speak when the time comes.

Sir D. MACLEAN: Suppose the Amendment of the hon. Member for Wood Green was submitted and negatived, would it not be open to hon. Members subsequently to move the Amendment which deals with the Tuesdays and Fridays, or does the negativing of the Amendment which my hon. Friend has in his mind not leave the original question open for Amendment afterwards?

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: At present we have not got any Amendment, but the Amendment I intended to call was to the effect that the Motion should only apply to Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Whatever the result of that Amendment, it would be open to my hon. Friend to move that any time taken on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Friday should be given back after Easter. The one in no way affects the other.

Sir F. BANBURY: On a point of Order. Can a Member who has already spoken on the main question move an Amendment?

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Usually that is not so, but there are precedents on these particular Motions which admit it.

Sir F. BANBURY: Then it would be admitted?

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Yes.

Mr. HOGGE: Like my hon. Friend the Member for Wood Green (Mr. Locker-Lampson), who complained of Members on the Front Bench intervening in these discussions, I have always stood up for the rights of private Members, and when I sat below the Gangway I took more trouble than most private Members to
maintain the privileges of the private Member. I think there are certain general propositions which the Leader of the House would perhaps care to give us some more information about before we discuss Amendments. In the first place, my right hon. Friend said nothing at all about restoring the time that he proposed to take away from private Members. I am astounded at the doctrine propounded by the right hon. Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury) that we are not giving up very much. When you give up between the beginning of the Session and Easter the whole of Tuesday and Wednesday nights and the whole of Friday, you give up the real basis of the private Members' rights. My right hon. Friend, who has championed the question of dogs for as many Sessions as I have been in Parliament, knows very well that unless a Private Member draws a place in the ballot in such a way that he gets his Bill read a Second time in the House before Easter, he has practically no chance at all of that. Bill becoming law.

Sir F. BANBURY: May I say that I have three times got my Dogs Bill to a Committee, and once to a Third Reading, and I have never drawn a place in the ballot in my life.

Mr. HOGGE: If my right hon. Friend had, he might now have had his Dogs Bill an Act of Parliament. Everybody, except my right hon. Friend, knows that any private Member with a Bill does get a chance with that Bill on a Friday which he otherwise would not get, and there is a very vast difference between only getting Wednesday night between Easter and Whitsuntide, and the usual private Members' time. I have not worked it out in point of hours or dates, but there is a vast difference, particularly this year, and I think the Leader of the House should, at any rate, acquaint the House with his intentions with regard to the period between Easter and Whitsuntide. In previous attempts to take away the time of the private Member, that time has been partially restored, and while I would be prepared to demand that the whole of the time taken away should be restored, I think the Government should make some concession in the matter. As a matter of fact, the Bills are the more important part of the consideration, because of the fact that they have to go
upstairs to Committee and then come down again, and if you deprive private Members of six Fridays, it practically delays the Report Stage to such a period of the Session as finds the Government involved in the Report Stage of their own big Bills, when it is very difficult to find time. I do not think it is fair of any Government to deprive the private Member of that kind of right.
Then, with regard to the discussions on the Tuesday and Wednesday nights, again some Members seem to think we are not giving up very much by giving up these particular occasions, but, in my view, we are giving up the most important privilege that remains to the private Member by surrendering the Tuesday and Wednesday nights. It has been pointed out already that on the Order Paper of the House dealing with the Address in reply to the King's Speech there were from thirty to fifty Amendments put down, every one of them raising topics of considerable interest which required to be discussed if there were time. My right hon. Friend knows that a private Member, deprived of the opportunity of raising a point in the Debate on the Address, may secure that opportunity on the Tuesday or Wednesday night, and have a two and a half hours' Debate, and not only that; he has the recurring opportunity of drawing attention to some urgent public business. It may be that if he drew the ballot to-day for next Wednesday, something may have happened in the course of the last few days that requires immediate discussion. The discussion of that subject is likely to do the Government some harm, it may be, and I do not know whether the Government, in taking away the discussion on the Tuesday and Wednesday nights, have not got in view the idea that they can prevent this House criticising their particular policy on this subject or the other. I have been in the House long enough to remember occasions on the Tuesday and Wednesday nights when the Government have saved themselves by the old practice of putting up one of their own supporters to talk out the Resolution moved by a private Member, the subject raised being so awkward.
My right hon. Friend saves himself inside the next six weeks—and a great deal of the discussion has gone on the lines of saving of one kind or another—but in this instance the Leader of the
House has come right out for "safety first" by preventing us, on something like ten or twelve occasions, from challenging the Government on matters of policy that could not otherwise be raised. There is the question which occupied our attention to-day at the end of Questions. A Minister of the Crown for the last few days has had to get up and give us special information about Ireland, which has occupied a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes each time. There would have been an opportunity, under the old system, of raising that question and debating it for two and a half hours in the House and forcing the Government to express their opinion upon it. At the present moment they escape all that, and the more the Government escape that kind of legitimate criticism by the private Member, the more secure they are, so far as their own safety is concerned. For these reasons alone, we ought to hesitate very much before agreeing to this Resolution of the Government.
Before I sit down, I want to elaborate a point which I know has the sympathy of my right hon. Friend, because he has replied to me before upon that particular topic, and he himself, I believe, has said that it has his sympathy. Has the time not now come, and come at once, when Parliament ought to re-arrange the whole question of its time? We are continually finding that, because Parliament meets so late, financial business necessitates this kind of Motion. There is one way of getting out of that—a very patent and obvious way—and that is the way of meeting very much earlier than the second week in February, which has become the practice nearly of all Governments. If we met, as I think we ought to meet, in the middle of January, instead of the middle of February, this Government, and any Government, would be able to get through their financial business before the 31st March and not deprive the private Member of any of his privileges. It might be obtained by meeting, as we meet now, in the middle of February and lifting the private Members' privileges out of the period from the middle of February to the 31st March, and putting them all in between Easter and Whitsuntide. That would be another alternative method of doing it, but I am quite certain that this practice of haphazard arrangement from
week to week, which has been the practice of this House so long as I have been in it, is not satisfactory.
I have heard hon. Members pointing out over and over again the conflict between the times that this House meets and their own domestic convenience. The best illustration is the question of school holidays. Many Members of this House are deprived over and over again of associating themselves with their children in the school holidays; because we are sitting while the children are on holiday, and the children have gone back to school before we meet. It may be quite a small domestic point, but it seems to me that if a few could lay their heads together, it would be possible to suggest a new timetable for the House of Commons which would meet that kind of objection, and I do submit that that is the kind of reform we are entitled to demand, not from a Government, but from ourselves. I think we give up too much by accommodating ourselves to a kind of precedent in this matter, and not addressing our minds to it from a common-sense point of view. Personally, I must oppose the proposal of the Leader of the House to-day, on the grounds I have stated, that it is bad for the House of Commons and bad for the Government, and I think it could be arranged otherwise. While I oppose that as the proposal at this moment, whatever happens to the rest of the Debate and to the Amendments, I think it would be worth our while to examine the 12 months from the point of view of the convenience, not only of the Government, but of the private Member, and, if that were done, some substantial good would result from these discussions.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I think, perhaps, I ought to say a. few words in reply to the observations which have just fallen from the hon. Gentleman opposite, and to some observations which fell from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Peebles (Sir D. Maclean) earlier in the evening. The hon. Gentleman who has just spoken, in the concluding and very interesting part of his speech, dealt, not with the question immediately before us, but with the general arrangements of the House of Commons as handed down for long ages, modified by recent events, modified always in the direction of demanding more from the Members, and
imposing a greater strain upon the Departments. It is a question.of great interest and of great importance. He spoke about it, I think, privately, although I do not remember a public discussion. He knows I am not unsympathetic at all to the idea of such a consideration. I think there are two ways of considering the subject. One would be to get together an informal Committee of Members of experience, who would try what they could to come to conclusions which might form the basis of an examination by a Select. Committee of the House of Commons. The other would be at once to appoint a Select Committee. I shrink a little from the second proposal, because I imagine that the House would expect that on a Committee appointed to consider such a question the Leader of the House should serve, and I frankly admit I do not see how, under present circumstances, I could find the time to attend such a Committee. All of us have so much work at the present time that it makes it almost impossible to take part in an inquiry on questions of this kind, which, although interesting and very important, are not of immediate urgency.
I say no more about that, but I turn rather to the earlier portion of the hon. Gentleman's speech, and the remarks of the right hon. Member for Peebles. I observe that the first response of the right hon. Member for Peebles to the appeal of the right hon. Member for Platting (Mr. Clynes), that we should all facilitate business by making short speeches, was to take as much time himself as the right hon. Gentleman and I had taken in combination in expressing our views about this Resolution. I do not think that that suggestion helps us very far. I venture to say, as the result of a long experience, in so far as time might be economised, it might quite as well be economised as regards a great number of short speeches, as by curtailing those long speeches, which, after all, are in many cases most full of matter, and most worthy of attention by the House, which, if curtailed, would deprive the House of an adequate answer from the Government and the opportunity for the Opposition fully to state their case. Take, for instance, the speeches yesterday. Take the speech of my hon. Friend who moved the Amendment. It is not a speech to which, perhaps, I ought to pay compliments, but it formed a very formidable indictment of
Government policy, and I do not think there was any superfluous sentence in the case which he was making. I think practically the same may be said of the necessarily lengthy replies which were made. I do not think that by refusing permission to anyone to speak for more than 10 or 20 minutes, you will really improve the quality of our Debates, or prevent waste of time.
Let me go back to what has happened. An ingenuous hearer of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman might really suppose that I was proposing something quite extraordinary and unheard of. I had the curiosity to look up what happened in the years before the War. In 1910, the right hon. Member for Paisley (Mr. Asquith) moved a similar Resolution, giving precedence to Government business up to and including the 24th March. The next year he moved that up to and including the 13th April the Government should have precedence of business, and on the 18th April he moved a similar Motion taking all the time up to Whitsuntide. In 1912 we were treated gently. It is the only year of comparative ease that Parliament has been allowed since 1906. But in 1913 he moved in March a Resolution giving Government business precedence up to and including the 31st March, and he coupled with that a strong Closure Resolution. The right hon. Gentleman speaks now with approval—at any rate, with comparative approval—of what was done in the last few years. He singled out, I think, 1920.as one of the years for commendation. Does he want me to follow the 1920 precedent, and sit after 11 o'clock. Does he want me to have Saturday sittings? Does he want me to have here and now a time table deciding that by specific dates all these Supplementary Estimates and the Votes on Account are to pass through Committee, and on the next day terminate with a report, and fixing the time for the Consolidated Fund Bill as well? I am sure he does not.
Those are the alternatives which he chooses for commendation in order to attack my present Motion. Will the right hon. Gentleman permit me to observe a certain weakness not infrequently to be found in his speeches? He is so anxious to make a case against the Government that every argument which occurs to him is used for that purpose, and he
falls into the mistake of using self-contradictory arguments, from which I would advise my right hon. Friend studiously to abstain. His zeal outruns his discretion. He says that really there is so little business to be done before the 31st March that this Motion is wholly unnecessary. If that be so, and he will facilitate the business, we can come to an accommodation. But then, immediately afterwards, he says, "Don't you hurry these Supplementary Estimates. Don't you venture to take them after 11 o'clock. Let us discuss them fully, as they deserve." I know what that means. The right hon. Gentleman, with the aid of his friends, and with the aid of my friends, will occupy a great deal of time in the consideration of some of these Estimates.
6.0 P.M.
I will meet the right hon. Gentleman, and I will remove a misconception from his mind. I am not moving this Motion in order to bring in a great number of Bills before Easter for which there is no urgency. I have mentioned one really important and very urgent Measure which we do wish to carry as far as we can, and, if possible, through all its stages before Easter, and that is the Irish Bill. I do not propose to take advantage of this Motion to introduce any other Measure for which I cannot show a special reason of urgency in point of time. I will not specify, because I have not, exactly examined the list of Bills from that point of view, but I will take as an illustration, and not because of its intrinsic importance, the Bill regarding coroners' juries. Unless that Bill pass by a certain time, coroners' juries will have to be summoned, with their attendant expenses, and it is necessary before the expiring Bill lapses to get the new Bill in. Again, there may be economies recommended by the Geddes Committee which require legislation, and where the economy cannot begin until the legislation has been passed. I cannot hope to get all of these. I have no intention of taking any Bills, however much I might desire to see them carried, or to use this Motion to take them before Easter—or I should say the end of the financial year. I refer to such Bills as the Criminal Law Amendment Bill, Land Reform, and so on. If we get through with Supply earlier than I anticipate, if we save time on that, and get through the Irish Bill and such other Bills of the character I have mentioned, and about
which I do not think there will be any serious dispute, we will give back the days so used to the free use of private Members. Suppose we have done this business soon by any arrangement by which it can be done within the time necessary, we will give back the evenings or the Fridays so set free to private Members. I hope I have shown, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman will feel, that I am doing my best to meet my hon. Friends opposite-fairly.

Mr. HOGGE: Does my right hon. Friend mean that if he does not require Tuesday, Wednesdays, and Fridays up to Easter he will give them to us, or does he mean to say that if he requires them he will take them up to Easter, and will give them back after?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I was coming to that. The hon. Gentleman has repeated a verbal slip of mine in talking of Easter when we are dealing with the period up to the end of the financial year. It was my mistake. We are dealing only with the period up to the end of the financial year. What I say is that if the private Members' time be not required for the purposes I have just described, it shall go back to the private Members. I cannot undertake after the end of the financial year to replace the days which may have been subtracted from private Members' time before that. That was done on one occasion by my right hon. Friend the then Premier, in 1920. Dealing with the subject in 1921 he said he could not possibly repeat that procedure, as it had led to a congestion of business by the days being given back, and had involved the House in exactly the same sort of difficulty in the later period that they had escaped by taking the private Members' time earlier. Only one word more. I cannot promise—nobody could—that I will not ask the House to sit after 11 o'clock, but I am anxious to avoid that: and it is in order to avoid that, or sitting on Saturdays, or both and in addition perhaps having to ask the House to give me a time table, that I am suggesting what I do. I will do my best to avoid sitting after 11 o'clock, and also a time table, but that is dependent upon the co-operation of the House.

Sir D. MACLEAN: My question referred to taking Supplementary Estimates after
11 o'clock at night. That is the point I wish to emphasise. I understood—I hope I am wrong—the right hon. Gentleman to say that he could not give any undertaking that he would not take Supplementary Estimates after 11. I am sure that will cause very great feeling in the House.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I said I could not give an undertaking to that effect, for the business must be got through. If by taking the time of the House I ask for in this Resolution I can avoid sitting after 11 o'clock at night, I shall do it. If I cannot get it through in this time, if the House requires more time and insists upon discussing these Votes at great length, I may have to ask the House in a particular case for the suspension of the Eleven o'Clock Rule or the imposition of a timetable to get the conclusion of business. I want to avoid that, and by this Motion I am doing everything that lies in my sole power to avoid this thing.

Mr. MILLS: I beg to move, after the word "That," to insert the words "on Tuesdays and Wednesdays."
The attacks by the Front Opposition Bench and the defence by the Government Bench prove this Resolution to be a hardy annual as between the Opposition that was yesterday the Government and the Government that was yesterday the Opposition. It seems to be a, time-honoured Parliamentary practice of talking for hours about nothing in particular until at last we are closured and then with a sort of dignified protest we shout "gag" and go out with our tongues in our cheeks. I have got up earlier than some of my hon. Friends desired in order to move my Amendment. because I, for one, resent the practice of Parliamentary time being wasted. I am one of those who as a back-bencher suffer from that disqualification, but at the same time I am acutely conscious of the fact that those who have had to endure some of the speeches that I have delivered have suffered more acutely possibly than I have. Before, however, one achieves the distinction of being able to entertain the House without the waste of a word for half an hour one has to go through a period of purgatory, and there is no reason, if we have to go through that period, that it should be on such a subject as this.
My colleague the Member for Spen Valley (Mr. Myers) and myself absolutely refuse to attempt to put life into a proposition such as this which no one can put any heart into because, after all, it is perfectly hollow. With the hon. Member for the Western Isles (Dr. Murray) who is, I believe, a champion of pickled herrings, I tabled an Amendment to the Address from the Throne on the question of the revision of the Peace Treaty. We got no show on the Address. In common with other Members we tabled an Amendment to the Address on the question of Egypt which has been denied discussion in this House for two years and a half. During the ensuing few weeks, as a result of the many recommendations of the various Committees, there will he innumerable things that private Members will desire to bring forward. Take one particular case. In a civic sense I am associated with the Borough of Woolwich. The Borough of Woolwich has had repeated pledges from the present Prime Minister and the former Leader of the House that as a result of war services rendered they would specifically pledge themselves that in the days following the War there would be allocated to the national factory the work of the supplies required. Yet to-day, and every time that we meet in order to discuss this state of affairs, due to the fact that the Borough of Woolwich has no outlet to the river—though it is a riverside borough—because every yard of which is taken up by the Government, we have this position: that every month we are met with increasing rates and local disaster, and we are faced with increased discharges from inside Woolwich Arsenal—

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I am afraid the hon. Gentleman is travelling beyond the terms of the Motion.

Mr. MILLS: I only desire to point out that many private Members feel a deep sense of injury due to the fact that we cannot get adequate discussion of these things just at the time when there is a real desire for discussion.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: On a point of Order. Is not my hon. Friend perfectly in Order on his Amendment to show that if it is not carried many subjects which private Members desire to see discussed will have no opportunity for discussion? Is he not in order in outlining the points?

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Perfectly, but the hon. Gentleman was proceeding to fill in the outline.

Mr. MILLS: I disclaim any intention of contravening the Chair, and what I have said is only from a deep sense of the misery obtaining in Woolwich. I leave that subject in the hope that the Secretary for War will be able to do something. I gave him notice that if I could catch the Speaker's eye it was my intention to raise this matter on the discussion on Unemployment. I failed, however, to do so, because, as I have said, I am an obscure back-bencher. However, having made my protest I hope that the Secretary for War, having regard to the promises that were specifically made by the Prime Minister, who told me himself on one delegation to come to him with any real grievance that we had. I am hoping the Secretary for War, before he announces these decisions that other people have put him up to, will have a look at the solemn pledges made by the Prime Minister on the grave question, because if you look at the Estimates and the millions of money spent on guns and projectiles—

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: That is not in order. The right hon. Gentleman is quite in order to say that he has a very important point to raise affecting his constituency, but he is not in order in developing the case.

Mr. MILLS: I shall formally move this Amendment then, the reason being that we desire to preserve to the private Members the full use of Fridays as the only day in the week for private Member's business. I should like to make a personal explanation. I refer to the fact that I mentioned Woolwich from the point of view of civic action and not as its Parliamentary representative. I wish to make that point Perfectly clear. We oppose the Motion because we do believe—unlike the Government supporters whose opposition is on different grounds—that while there is a real need for a lot of this legislation becoming law at the earliest possible moment, whilst we desire that all economies that can be enacted will be legalised at the earliest possible moment, we do claim that at least one day in the week, Friday, should be left to the private Member. I hope the Leader of the House will see his way clear to grant it.

Mr. T. THOMSON: I beg to second the Amendment. I would like to refer to what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London said. In opposition to, and anticipating its effect, he made little of the value of the work on Fridays of private Members. During, I think he said, his 30 years' experience no good had ever come from the deliberations of private Members which have taken place on Fridays in this House. As a new Member I suggest that even in this Parliament very useful Measures have been passed through the actions of private Members working on Fridays. If I remember rightly there was a Bill which I think the right hon. Baronet (Sir F. Banbury) backed, and I know that he supported it, which provided that when property was compounded and the rates levied, the amount of those rates should he specified at the back of the rent notice.

Sir F. BANBURY: I opposed that proposal thinking it would probably be a dead letter, which I believe it is.

Mr. THOMSON: It was certainly supported by his friends. There were several other Measures of a humane character, Measures like the one prohibiting the killing of pigeons, and the Importation of Plumage Bill which were carried last Session. Therefore it is not correct to say that Fridays are not productive of useful legislation. If you go back for a few years you will find that many small Measures of a useful character have originated and been carried through at Friday sittings. It is only when Fridays are available to private Members in the early days of the Session that it is possible for a private Member to get his Bill through. There were two Measures before Parliament last Session which had the general approval of hon. Members, namely, the Criminal Law Amendment Bill, and the Bill which sought to give the same guardianship of infants to the woman as to the man. These Measures had to be set aside because there was not half-an-hour available to complete the various stages, and if they had been introduced in the early days of the Session they would have been passed instead of being sacrificed under the guillotine.
There is a strong precedent for demanding that the rights of private Members should not be jeopardised in this way. Reference has been made to the amount
of time occupied by right hon. Gentlemen sitting on the Front Benches. May I point out that the first two hours of this Debate have been occupied by Members of the two Front Benches. I think what is now proposed is a serious attack on the few opportunities left to back-benchers. The tendency now is that the ordinary private Member becomes a mere cog in the huge Parliamentary machine, and as a protest against that I second this Amendment. We hear outside criticisms and opponents of democracy suggesting that other measures must be taken because Parliament has failed to function, and for these reasons it is more important than ever that the House should preserve those few privileges that remain to the rank and file and the back-benchers of this House.
We were hoping that old traditions would be broken as a result of the War, and that less power would be left in the hands of the Ministerial Bench. I protest against this proposal, and I appeal to the Leader of the House to at least save something for the private Member. At the present time there are large questions of public importance which the private Member can only raise on Fridays and other days which it is now sought to take away. On the Address many of us wished to ventilate various questions which were not dealt with adequately in the King's Speech, which was conspicuous by the small amount of legislation foreshadowed. Promises given before by the Government have not been realised. There is the question of the equalisation of the rating system in industrial districts as compared with residential and country districts, and that is a reform which the Government have promised, and upon which everything is ready for new legislation. The previous Minister of Health promised that the Government were seriously considering this matter, and foreshadowed the introduction of a Measure dealing with this matter in the early future. Now those matters will be ruled out by this filching away of the privileges of private Members. I hope the right hon. Gentleman may yet see that it is possible to save this small part of our privileges as suggested by the Amendment in order that private Members may fulfil their duty and represent the views they are sent here to express.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I hope the hon. Gentleman opposite will not think it discourteous of me if I reply at once very briefly to his Amendment. I had in anticipation of what has been urged already dealt with the Amendment which has just been moved, and I cannot go beyond the assurance that I have already given, which I think went a long way to satisfy hon. Members that I was doing my best to deprive private Members of as little time as possible. I wish to make this one observation. The hon. Member who spoke last took indeed a gloomy view of the utility of private Members, and I cannot think that his own Parliamentary existence is so futile as he seems to think. It was extremely unfortunate that the hon. Member should have selected as an illustration of the urgent questions which he wished to discuss a series of measures not one of which could be raised on the days which he wishes to retain. There was not one of the illustrations given in his speech which could be used as an argument in favour of this Amendment.

Mr. RHYS DAVIES: I desire to support this Amendment and wish to make one or two observations on the Debate which has taken place. As a new Member, I have been somewhat disillusioned as to my powers as a private Member of this House. As one trying to gain some experience of how to lay my views before the House, and bring forward some of the grievances of my constituents, I have failed to find any opportunity at all in regard to some subjects except by putting a question on the Order Paper, which does not provide the private Member with very much opportunity of explaining his views. I have been inundated with communications from my constituents as to the famine in Russia and I quote that as an illustration.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: That is a question which could not be dealt with by a private Member on a Friday.

Mr. DAVIES: Of course, I am open to correction on these matters. I presume every hon. Member will be very jealous of the powers of the Government in this connection. I have had a little experience of municipal work and in my experience in one of the largest corporations of this country I have found that we have had more opportunity of express-
ing our opinions there than we have in the mother of Parliaments. I thought in coming here that an ordinary Member or back-bencher would have more opportunities than he has. I would like to use one point as an illustration. The Leader of the House has told us that he will, on behalf of the Government, introduce legislation dealing with some parts of the Geddes Report, but he will not introduce legislation, I take it, upon all the recommendations in that Report.
I am wondering where the opportunity will arise for an hon. Member to raise a subject mentioned in the Geddes Report, that is, the Secret Service. A great outcry has come about in this land concerning economy on education, and I am using this only as an illustration. We are told in the Geddes Report that there must be economy on certain national services. I notice on the Secret Service that the amount expended last year was four times the amount expended in 1913. I have been wondering in connection with this matter how a private Member can deal with a point like that in the event of the Leader of the House bringing forward legislation on some of the recommendations of the Geddes Committee, probably without mentioning the one I have just touched upon.
I trust the Government will be jealous of the good name of Parliament; as jealous as we are of the rights of the individual Member. Outside this House there is much criticism being levelled against Parliament because there is no power for the individual Member to raise very important subjects; and although I am jealous of the rights of the individual Member I am jealous also of the rights of Parliament itself, and I want the good name of Parliament to be maintained. If the Motion put forward by the Government to close discussion is carried, I feel that another blow will be aimed at and carried against our Parliamentary institution. With these few observations I desire to support the Amendment before the House.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: I think it should be made quite clear to the Government what this Amendment means. There are very serious reasons for it. It is to give the Government Tuesdays and Wednesdays up to the end of the financial year, but to reserve Fridays for
private Members' Bills. These Bills are of enormous importance, not to private Members, but to the country as a whole. It so happens that the Labour party, in the ballot, have been not lucky in getting good places for the introduction of private Members' Measures, and therefore their Bills in all probability will not come before Parliament this Session. But there are many Bills of great urgency which do need to be discussed. The Second Reading Debates on Fridays are of enormous importance, not only to the people who introduce Bills, but for the purpose of educating Parliament as a whole on various questions. Take two questions which the Labour party wanted to introduce by way of private Bills this Session. We wanted to bring forward that old stager the Right to Work Bill, which we have brought in over and over again. No one can deny, whether they agree with the Bill or not, that it ought to be discussed in Parliament. If it is the rotten Measure which some Members suggest it is, by all means let us have it discussed. Undoubtedly public discussion of a Bill like that is useful both to the House and to the country. Then we wanted to bring forward a fresh Workmen's Compensation Bill. Next December the workmen's compensation question will become a matter of political importance in this country. Instead of getting 25s. a week, the workman's compensation will automatically fall to 20s., unless the Government think fit to bring in legislation to prevent it. We wanted to bring forward a Bill to put workmen's compensation on a sound basis. I think that that is a matter which should be debated in this House and voted upon. It ought not to be left solely for platform use in the country. In the interests of the Government Front Bench, the more discussion you have on these Measures in the House the better educated will become the whole House, and the better fitted will the subject be rendered for platform discussion in the country.

Mr. MOSLEY: The Leader of the House let fall one observation which left the impression on my mind that he considered the fact that hon. Members could comment freely on the Government mitigated in some degree the force of our objections to this Resolution. I think such a conception goes to the very root
of the whole case. The idea now prevalent is that this House exists purely for the legislation of the Government of the day. That shows how we have drifted from its original function. This is not a matter of Parliamentary experience. The original function of this Assembly was far more to ventilate the grievances of the community than to pass legislation. The ventilation of cases of hardship and suffering, together with the dealing with finance, constituted almost entirely the original function of this House. It is therefore with increasing apprehension that all private Members witness a complete change in the whole complexion of this Assembly by the gradual and ever-increasing abrogation of the right of private Members to ventilate the grievances of their constituents. What is the position in which we are placed? We find ourselves in the same position year after year under almost every Government. The right hon. Gentleman's argument, I admit, proves that this offence is not confined to the present Government. But that argument redounds entirely to the advantage of the argument advanced by the Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Hogge), that the time has arrived for recasting the business of this House. Every year we are confronted with two alternatives each of which is equally disastrous. We have to choose either the surrender of the rights of private Members or the surrender of our control over finance. I am not prepared to say that such a position can be avoided.
The right hon. Member for Peebles (Sir D. Maclean) has gone in great detail through the business before the House, and has pointed out that the meeting of this House was actually postponed for a week. It has been argued that the present position could have been avoided by an earlier meeting of Parliament. I think the time has arrived when the business of this House should be reconstituted, and our arrangements so altered as to prevent our being annually placed in this dilemma of either surrendering the rights of private Members and exercising the immemorial function of this Assembly the ventilation of grievances, or on the other hand losing our control over finance. This is a dilemma with which the House is confronted almost every year. I shall certainly choose not to sacrifice finance for the reason that I believe that to be a paramount issue
before the country to-day. It is the one burning question that really counts, and is even more important than the preservation of the time-honoured rights of private Members. At the same time I think it desirable to place on record a most emphatic protest against the position in which we find ourselves, of being forced to choose between the two alternatives I have mentioned. I hope the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House will turn his attention to this matter, and will realise that it is of greater urgency and importance than one would be led to suppose from the remarks which fell from him.

Mr. G. BARKER: I wish to offer my strongest protest against this attempt of the Government to take the time of private Members. The questions with which the Government propose to deal during the present Session may be very important in themselves, but at the present time with the depression in trade under which we are labouring the people of this country—the great mass of the people—have only the remotest interest in those questions. Urgent and pressing social questions are being neglected entirely by the Government. The country is looking to the Government to meet the difficulties arising from the present industrial situation, and yet it is doing nothing at all to cope with the destitution and poverty that exist to an extent never before known in this country. Members on the Labour Benches are inundated with letters from their constituencies urging them to bring these questions before the House, but there is very little facility for the private Member to do anything of the kind, except in a casual way by dealing with matters in the way of question and answer. There is a question which touches this country from one end to the other, and that is the question of local governing bodies dealing with unemployment. Many of them are practically bankrupt at the present moment, and yet they are inundated with applications for relief. There is a Conference now sitting in London dealing with this question, but the Government makes no attempt to give any satisfaction to the House on this very grave and important matter. Private Members are anxious to bring it before Parliament, but time is too limited and they are unable to do anything.
Then there is the question of housing, which is in a deplorable condition in the country. The Government are entirely ignoring it. I should like to take some Members of the Government into houses occupied by the working classes at the present time. Only a fortnight ago I was in a house which was occupied by no fewer than three families. Similar cases are to be found in almost every town and village throughout the country, and yet the Government entirely ignore the matter and make no attempt to deal with the great evil of overcrowding. Private Members would like to bring the matter before the House of Commons, but have no facility for doing so. Again, there is the question of the disabled soldier. Only the other day, in answer to a question I put, it was admitted by the Government that they had had resolutions from county councils and boards of guardians with reference to this matter, showing instances in which the disabled soldier, not having an adequate pension, had been compelled to apply to the guardians for relief. There is no opportunity for private Members to raise this question in Debate. Another question is in connection with the subsidences due to mining operations. The district from which I come is the most heavily rated in the United Kingdom and yet they are now being mulcted in hundreds of pounds' expenditure owing to the subsidences caused by mining operations. This question has been before the House on a number of occasions, but the Government are ignoring it entirely, and depriving every private Member of any opportunity to bring it before the House.
Then there is the question of the imprisonment of destitute men for non-payment of arrears of Income Tax. It is astounding to-day, when hundreds of thousands of men are unemployed, that many have been ruthlessly seized, taken from their homes, and thrust into prison because they had not paid arrears of Income Tax. It is utterly impossible for them to pay those arrears. To these questions and many others, the Government turn a deaf ear. They are devoid of any remedy for these evils, but are using the time of the House for remote Imperial purposes instead of looking after the interests and the welfare of the people of this great country. Therefore, I offer the strongest opposition to this Motion, and I hope that private Members, espe-
cially those who sit on the Back Benches, and who may rise 50 times before they catch Mr. Speaker's eye, will oppose, in the strongest possible way, the action of the Government in thus filching time from the private Member.

Dr. MURRAY: I join with the strong—but not, as some people have suggested, cynical—protest which has been made against the Government's plan with regard to the time of this House. This is a private Members' Session. Were it not for the private Members of the House, we should not be in Session at all; there would have been no further Session of this Parliament. The Government, as we understood, or, at any rate, important sections of the Government, were for dissolving Parliament this month, and were it not for the fact that, as one has gathered, a prominent private Member of this House laid the opinion of a number of other private Members before certain Members of the Government, we should have been dead and buried, some of us, long ago. Therefore, if, as between the Government and the private Members, there is to be any sort of claim, the private Members ought to have the preference. I am not going into the question who was the criminal who threatened this act of assassination upon the House. There have been assertions and counter assertions on that point, and it would not be proper for me to enter into these domestic questions, but we have a Scottish Member of this House to thank for the fact that we are here at all. I do not, therefore, see what claim the Government has upon the House. Besides, I do not think all the Members of the Government are united in claiming the time of the House, because I have only seen one wing of the Government represented on the Front Bench all this afternoon; the other wing seem to have said to my hon. and gallant Friend who is there: "It is your funeral, so make the best of it." I do not see any of the so-called Coalition Liberal Members of the Government here at all. I do not call them National Liberal members yet, because I am not at all sure that they have paid their 33⅓ per cent. duty for importing that name from Germany. I commend that to my hon. Friend the Secretary of the Overseas Trade Department.
I was very sorry to see that the right hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury), whom I have always regarded, even before I came to this House, as the champion of the private Member, has fallen from grace to-night. I used to look upon him as my idol as a House of Commons man, but I find that even House of Commons idols have feet of clay, and I am sorry to say that my faith in the right hon. Baronet as an out-and-out House of Commons man has been considerably undermined this afternoon. The right hon. Baronet attacked the private Member for misusing the time of the House on Fridays. I quite admit that I have used some moments on Friday afternoons in discussing Bills of which I knew very little, in order that I might prevent the right hon. Baronet from coming on with some of his Bills, of which I knew a good deal, but I think it is very ungracious of the right hon. Baronet, who has occupied a good deal of time on Friday afternoons in this House, to try and prevent other private Members from bringing forward questions in which they are interested, and many of which have been mentioned this afternoon. Some wild accusations have been made as to the way in which private Members waste the time of the House, but this Government—and I am not talking of the merits of their legislation at all—have wasted more of the time of this House than all the private Members for the last generation. Think of the time we spent in this House and in Committee on various Bills which were to be the foundation of the new world with which this Government was going to provide us. How many hours and days were spent on the Ministry of Transport Bill, which is now going to be scrapped? Then there was the Agriculture Bill, which is going to be scrapped.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: It is scrapped.

Dr. MURRAY: Then with regard to houses, I have been in Committee on, I think, about a dozen Housing Bills. In fact, almost as many Bills have been passed as there have been houses built, but they are all on the scrap heap now. All that time has been wasted, and wasted not only in passing Bills but in repealing them. There is one Act, I must admit, which, like the last rose of summer, is left blooming alone—the Safeguarding of
Industries Act; but I sometimes hear threatenings that even that Act, upon which we spent so many valuable days of the time of the House, is likely to go upon the scrap heap also, because I am not at all sure that everyone will regard it as consistent with what one section of the Government regard as full-blooded free trade. I have just mentioned these points to show that the charge that private Members waste the time of the House has no foundation, and that those who make this charge are themselves living in the glassiest of glass houses. There are many questions which private Members could bring forward with great advantage on Friday afternoons. I have some pet schemes of my own which I could bring forward on a Friday afternoon, but if this sort of thing goes on, I shall have no chance until some other good assassin arises and threatens the life of this Parliament, when we may he plunged in a General Election, and may have to put up with whatever means may be available for steering on the stormy seas on which we may be launched. I join in protesting against this greedy Government absorbing all the time of the House, and not even leaving the pet lamb of Fridays for the private Member, who, as I have said, has done less by a long way in regard to wasting the time of the House than has the Government.

Mr. CHARLES EDWARDS: I only want to say one word in support of this Amendment. There is one thing which would make an Amendment of this sort unnecessary, and the Government would not require to put down their Motion if it were carried out—I mean the curtailment of the length of the speeches to which we have to listen in this House. Yesterday we had seven hours' Debate, and I think that in that Debate only nine or ten hon. Members took part. It took such a course that, although we are 72 Members on this side, not one of us had a chance to speak. We had speeches of an hour's duration. That was quite unnecessary and uncalled for, and I think that the Standing Orders of the House ought to be so revised as to limit the length of speeches to, say, twenty minutes, or half an hour if you like. If the discussion on a Bill took the same time as it does at present, it would at least be more interesting, because many more hon. Members would take part in it. This Motion would also be rendered unneces-
sary if the Government would, first of all, consider what they are bringing in, and whether there is to be any permanency about it. I was here in December, 1920, when we were asked to sit until twelve, one, two, and three o'clock in the morning to get the Agriculture Bill. That Measure was on the Statute Book for some six months, and then another period of time was taken up in getting it off again. It is about time that the Government knew their business or studied their business before introducing matters of that kind. At any rate, If should like to see the length of the speeches curtailed. We complain about not being able to catch Mr. Speaker's eye, but I complain that when you have caught Mr. Speaker's eye you can talk as long as you like. It would be less boring to the House, and business would be done more effectively, if this suggestion were carried out.
I am against the taking of Fridays by the Government. There are matters of great importance which have been brought forward and which we want to bring forward again, and we are deprived of that privilege, at least until Easter. There is, for instance, the question of mothers' pensions. There are hon. Members in every party in the House who have backed that suggestion, and I wonder whether they are going to support the Government or to support our Amendment, which will give the right at least to discuss that matter once again. Then, in connection with Old Age Pensions, there are cases in which people are deprived of pensions because they have taken advantage of friendly societies in the past, or sometimes because employers pay them a pension. That is one of the things which we want to discuss, and which ought to be discussed from the point of view of the old people of this country. Again, a Bill has been introduced on two occasions, relating to what is a very serious matter for many people, namely, compensation for subsidence caused by underground workings. That is a matter which ought to be discussed again.

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is now saying what has been already said several times over in the present Debate.

Mr. EDWARDS: That is quite correct, Mr. Speaker, but I have not said it before, and I wanted to emphasise the necessity of retaining Fridays for these purposes.
I do not think the question of mothers' pensions has been mentioned before, and I am not sure that subsidence has. [HON. MEMBERS: "Yes!"] I am sorry. I think we ought at least to retain Fridays, and it is quite possible to do so, and at the same time for the Government to get through all the business they want to get through. We are told that not many Bills are to be introduced this Session, and I think they ought to get through very well without asking for the whole of the time of the House. In conclusion, I should like again to press the point that the' Standing Orders of the House should be so amended, and in my opinion improved, as to curtail the length of speeches. That would give the Government all the time they want, and a little more.

7.0. P.M.

Mr. MORGAN JONES: My experience of this House is very limited, and it may, perhaps, seem presumptuous on my part to discuss this Motion. I should like to approach this problem from a somewhat different angle. I can say, without any fear of challenge, that probably every new Member in this particular Parliament will be struck by at least two features of the House. The first is that there is a very distinct impression left upon one's mind of the extraordinary measure of domination exercised by the Cabinet over the deliberations of the House as a whole. Everyone outside the House appreciates that this measure of control which the Cabinet has been exercising over the House has been extraordinarily on the increase since the year, say, 1914. The second point is that at the present time there is a very remarkable disparity in numbers between the respective strengths of the Coalition parties and of the parties on this side of the House. That has a very definite bearing on the point now before the House, for this reason, that the greater the majority of the Government of the day the greater is the need for every care on the part of that Government not to override the private rights of the Members of the minority parties. Private Members on the other side, who follow the Government, have perhaps opportunities of placing their views in writing before individual members of that Government, but Members on this side have no such opportunity. Therefore,
their only chance of bringing before the House in a formal way any legislation they desire the House to discuss is by means of private Members Bills.
I should like to draw attention to an important development which is taking place in the mind of the country, and especially of the working classes, in these days relative to the function of Parliament. An inevitable consequence of this tremendous disparity in numbers is that at the moment large numbers of the working classes have an idea that whatever may be done or may be attempted by individual members of the Labour party is absolutely useless on account of the overwhelming majority on the opposite side of the House. There is, therefore, a remarkable revulsion of feeling against Parliament as such, as an instrument for social work which is much more far-reaching, probably, than a large number of hon. Members of this House appreciates. I will show presently what the feeling on this point is. It happened to be my lot not very long ago to be spending a week-end in one of the teeming valleys of South Wales. I was invited by a friend to go to a neighbouring hall, which happened to be more or less a shed, and to meet a number of young people who were discussing public affairs. I should estimate that the company there numbered not less than between 50 and 60 young fellows about my own age. I venture to say there was not one single man in that hall—they were discussing for the moment some problem of philosophy—who would not have told me that standing for Parliament was a hopeless business from top to bottom. At the bye-election at which I stood for Parliament—it is important. that hon. Members on the other side should understand this point of view, for they will be living in an entire fool's paradise if they ignore it—in the bye-election in August last a candidate was put up to defend this particular point of view. The point of view put forward was that on account of the helplessness of the individual Member of this House Parliament had long since ceased to be of any use, and they said, therefore, that on account of this helplessness, and because of his subjection to a Parliamentary machine, the inevitable thing for the working classes to do was to scrap Parliament and to erect some kind of industrial organisation.

Mr. STURROCK: Bolshevism!

Mr. JONES: It might even be Conservatism of a very much more refined kind. The point, however, is that this feeling reflects a growing lack of confidence in Parliament.

Mr. STURROCK: Only in Wales.

Mr. JONES: No, I think it is arising even in Yorkshire.

Lieut.-Colonel WATTS-MORGAN: And in Scotland; in Glasgow, and about the Clyde.

Mr. STURROCK: No.

Mr. JONES: The point of my argument is that if private Members' rights are to be invaded in the way now proposed by the Government, that obviously will mean another stroke in favour of the kind of philosophy which says that Parliament has long since ceased to have regard to the rights of the private Member. I am really putting forward the point of view of people outside. I can only advance the argument, if hon. Members on the other side will provide the brains to understand it. We are sent to the House of Commons to try to express the views of our constituents. Individual Members on this side of the House have cited various points of legislation which they think deserve support and attention from Parliament. One thing which everyone will agree deserves attention is the question of granting the franchise to women on precisely the same terms as it is given to men. Everyone will agree that that is a necessary democratic measure, which requires to be passed into law. There is no chance of getting it adopted formally as a Government Measure, but the individual Member should have an opportunity of ventilating what is possibly with some hon. Members at present an unpopular point of view. They should have a chance, at least, of getting it discussed and ventilated in the House.

Colonel Sir J. GREIG: It was brought forward and defeated last year.

Mr. JONES: That is only another reason why it should be presented once more. After all, the folly of yesterday very often becomes the wisdom of to-day. That is the history of all legislation. What was regarded as foolish yesterday becomes the merest wisdom to-morrow. Without detaining the House any longer may I put this point; that in the interests of Parliament itself and for the purpose of reviving the confidence of the people in Parliament, the private Member who seeks to do what he can to ventilate the grievances of his own constituents ought to have an opportunity accorded him, through the medium of private Bills, of bringing forward legislation in regard to matters which he considers ought to be dealt with?

Sir GODFREY COLLINS: The Lord Privy Seal, replying to the argument of the right hon. Member for Peebles (Sir D. Maclean), offered to make one or two concessions. We pressed on him and on the attention of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury this one simple point—that new votes for Supplementary Estimates should not be taken after 11 o'clock at night—

Mr. SPEAKER: Does that arise on this Amendment?

Sir G. COLLINS: This Amendment, if it is carried, will read:
That on Tuesdays and Wednesdays until the end of the financial year, Government Business do have precedence at every Sitting.
That is after 11 o'clock. Supplementary Estimates ought not to be taken after 11 o'clock at night, and it is on that point that I am anxious to address one or two observations to the Lord Privy Seal.

Mr. SPEAKER: I think the hon. Member is wrong. This Amendment is only to except Fridays from the proposed Order of the Government.

Question put, "That those words be there inserted."

The House divided: Ayes, 69; Noes, 243

Division No. 5.]
AYES.
[7.12 p.m.


Adamson, Rt. Hon. William
Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R.
Finney, Samuel


Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery)
Collins, Sir Godfrey (Greenock)
Galbraith, Samuel


Bell, James (Lancaster, Ormskirk)
Davies, Evan (Ebbw Vale)
Gillis, William


Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.
Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)
Glanville, Harold James


Bramsdon, Sir Thomas
Davison, J. E. (Smethwick)
Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)


Bromfield, William
Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)
Graham, W. (Edinburgh, Central)


Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)
Edwards, G. (Norfolk, South)
Grundy, T. W.


Cairns, John
Entwistle, Major C. F.
Hartshorn, Vernon


Hayday, Arthur
Newbould, Alfred Ernest
Walsh, Stephen (Lancaster, Ince)


Hayward, Evan
O'Grady, Captain James
Watts-Morgan, Lieut-Col. D.


Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Widnes)
Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)
Wedgwood, Colonel Joslah C.


Hirst, G. H.
Rendall, Atheistan
White, Charles F. (Derby, Western)


Hogge, James Myles
Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)
Wignall, James


Holmes, J. Stanley
Robertson, John
Williams, Aneurin (Durham, Consett)


Irving, Dan
Rose, Frank H.
Williams, Col. P. (Middlesbrough, E.)


John, William (Rhondda, West)
Royce, William Stapleton
Wilson, James (Dudley)


Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Sexton, James
Wilson, Rt. Hon, J. W. (Stourbridge)


Lawson, John James
Shaw, Thomas (Preston)
Wintringham, Margaret


Lunn, William
Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)
Wood, Major M. M. (Aberdeen, C.)


Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)
Swan, J. E.
Young, Robert (Lancaster, Newton)


Mills, John Edmund
Thomas, Rt. Hon. James H. (Derby)



Murray, Dr. D, (Inverness & Ross)
Thomson, T. (Middlesbrough, West)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr.


Myers, Thomas
Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton, E.)
T. Griffiths and Mr. W. R. Smith.


Naylor, Thomas Ellis
Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow)



NOES.


Agg-Gardner, Sir James Tynte
Ford, Patrick Johnston
McMicking, Major Gilbert


Armitage, Robert
Foreman, Sir Henry
Macnamara, Rt. Hon. Dr. T. J.


Armstrong, Henry Bruce
Forestier-Walker, L.
McNeill, Ronald (Kent, Canterbury)


Astbury, Lieut.-Com. Frederick W.
Foxcroft, Captain Charles Talbot
Macpherson, Rt. Hon. James I.


Balfour, Sir R. (Glasgow, Partick)
France, Gerald Ashburner
Mallalieu, Frederick William


Banbury, Rt. Hon. Sir Frederick G.
Fraser, Major Sir Keith
Malone, Major P. B. (Tottenham, S.)


Banner, Sir John S. Harmood
Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.
Manville, Edward


Barnes, Rt. Hon. G. (Glas., Gorbals)
Gange, E. Stanley
Marriott, John Arthur Ransome


Barnett, Major Richard W.
Gee, Captain Robert
Meysey-Thompson, Lieut.-Col. E. C


Barnston, Major Harry
Gibbs, Colonel George Abraham
Middlebrook, Sir William


Barrand, A. R.
Gilbert, James Daniel
Mildmay, Colonel Rt. Hon. F. B.


Bartley-Denniss, Sir Edmund Robert
Glimour, Lieut.-Colonel Sir John
Molson, Major John Elsdale


Beckett, Hon. Gervase
Glyn, Major Ralph
Moore, Major-General Sir Newton J.


Bell, Lieut.-Col. W. C. H. (Devizes)
Gray, Major Ernest (Accrington)
Moore-Brabazon, Lieut.-Col. J. T. C.


Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake)
Green, Joseph F. (Leicester, W.)
Moreing, Captain Algernon H.


Bonn, Capt. Sir I. H., Bart. (Gr'nw'h)
Greig, Colonel Sir James William
Morrison, Hugh


Bentinck, Lord Henry Cavendish-
Guest, Capt. Rt. Hon. Frederick E.
Morrison-Bell, Major A. C.


Betterton, Henry B.
Guinness, Lieut.-Col. Hon. W. E.
Munro, Rt. Hon. Robert


Birchall, J. Dearman
Hacking, Captain Douglas H.
Murchison, C. K.


Borwick, Major G. D.
Hallwood, Augustine
Murray, John (Leeds, West)


Boscawen, Rt. Hon. Sir A. Griffith-
Hambro, Angus Valdemar
Murray, William (Dumfries)


Bowyer, Captain G. W. E.
Hamilton, Major C. G. C.
Neal, Arthur


Brassey, H. L. C.
Hancock, John George
Newman, Colonel J. R. P. (Finchley)


Breese, Major Charles E.
Hanna, George Boyle
Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)


Bridgeman, Rt. Hon. William Clive
Harmsworth, C. B. (Bedford, Luton)
Nicholson, Brig.-Gen. J. (Westminster)


Brittain, Sir Harry
Harmsworth, Hon. E. C. (Kent)
Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield)


Broad, Thomas Tucker
Henderson, Lt.-Col. V. L. (Tradeston)
Norman, Major Rt. Hon. Sir Henry


Bruton, Sir James
Hennessy, Major J. R. G.
Norton-Griffiths, Lieut.-Col. Sir John


Buchanan, Lieut.-Colonel A. L. H.
Hickman, Brig.-General Thomas E.
Oman, Sir Charles William C.


Buckley, Lieut.-Colonel A.
Hohier, Gerald Fitzroy
Palmer, Major Godfrey Mark


Burdon, Colonel Rowland
Hope, Sir H. (Stirling & Cl'ckm'nn, W.)
Palmer, Brigadier-General G. L.


Burgoyne, Lt.-Col. Alan Hughes
Hopkinson, A. (Lancaster, Mossley)
Parry, Lieut.-Colonel Thomas Henry


Butcher, Sir John George
Hume-Williams, Sir W. Ellis
Pease, Rt. Hon. Herbert Pike


Campbell, J. D. G.
Hunter, General Sir A. (Lancaster)
Peel, Col. Hn. S. (Uxbridge, Mddx.)


Campion, Lieut.-Colonel W. R.
Hunter-Weston, Lieut-Gen. Sir A. G
Perkins, Walter Frank


Carr, W. Theodore
Hurd, Percy A.
Philipps, Sir Owen C. (Chester, City)


Casey, T. w.
Hurst, Lieut.-Colonel Gerald B.
Pickering, Colonel Emil W.


Cautley, Henry Strother
Inskip, Thomas Walker H.
Pollock, Rt. Hon. Sir Ernest Murray


Cecil, Rt. Hon. Evelyn (Birm., Aston)
Jephcott, A. R.
Pownall, Lieut.-Colonel Assheton


Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. A. (Birm. W.)
Jodrell, Neville Paul
Pratt, John William


Chamberlain, N. (Birm., Ladywood)
Johnson, Sir Stanley
Prescott, Major Sir W. H.


Chilcot, Lieut.-Com. Harry W.
Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)
Pretyman, Rt. Hon. Ernest G.


Clough, Sir Robert
Jones, J. T. (Carmarthen, Llanelly)
Purchase, H. G.


Conway, Sir W. Martin
Kellaway, Rt. Hon. Fredk. George
Rae, H. Norman


Coote, Colin Reith (Isle of Ely)
Kenyon, Barnet
Ramsden, G. T.


Cope, Major William
Kidd, James
Randies, Sir John Scurrah


Cowan, D. M. (Scottish Universities)
King, Captain Henry Douglas
Ratcliffe, Henry Butler


Cowan, Sir H. (Aberdeen and Kin[...].)
Lambert, Rt. Hon. George
Rees, Sir J. D. (Nottingham, East)


Croft, Lieut.-Colonel Henry Page
Lane-Fox, G. R.
Rees, Capt. J. Tudor- (Barnstaple)


Dalziel, Sir D. (Lambeth, Brixton)
Larmor, Sir Joseph
Reid, D. D.


Davies, Sir David Sanders (Denbigh)
Law, Alfred J. (Rochdale)
Remer, J. R.


Davies, Thomas (Cirencester)
Lewis, Rt. Hon. J. H. (Univ., Wales)
Renwick, Sir George


Dean, Commander p. T.
Lewis, T. A. (Glam., Pontypridd)
Richardson, Sir Alex. (Gravesend)


Dockrell, Sir Maurice
Lindsay, William Arthur
Roberts, Rt. Hon. G. H. (Norwich)


Doyle, N. Grattan
Lloyd-Greame, Sir P.
Roberts, Samuel (Hereford, Hereford)


Edwards, Major J. (Aberavon)
Locker-Lampson, Com. O. (H'tlngd'n)
Roberts, Sir S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)


Edwards, Hugh (Glam., Neath)
Lorden, John William
Robinson, S. (Brecon and Radnor)


Elliot, Capt. Walter E. (Lanark)
Loseby, Captain C. E.
Rodger, A. K.


Erskine, James Malcolm Monteith
Lowe, Sir Francis William
Roundell, Colonel R. F.


Eyres-Monsell, Com. Bolton M
Lowther, Maj.-Gen. Sir C. (Penrith)
Royds, Lieut-Colonel Edmund


Falcon, Captain Michael
Lyle, C. E. Leonard
Rutherford. Sir W. W. (Edge Hill)


Falle, Major Sir Bertram Godfray
McCurdy, Rt. Hon. Charles A.
Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)


Farquharson, Major A. C.
Macdonald, Rt. Hon. John Murray
Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)


Flides, Henry
Mackinder, Sir H. J. (Camlachie)
Sassoon, Sir Philip Albert Gustave D.


Fitz Roy, Captain Hon. Edward A.
McLaren, Hon. H. D. (Leicester)
Scott, A. M. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)


Fiannery, Sir James Fortescue
M'Lean, Lieut.-Col. Charles W. W.
Scott, Sir Samuel (St. Marylebone)




Shaw, Hon. Alex. (Kilmarnock)
Taylor, J.
Williams, C. (Tavistock)


Shaw, William T. (Forfar)
Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)
Willoughby, Lieut.-Col. Hon. Claud


Shortt, Rt. Hon. E. (N'castle-on-T.)
Thomson, Sir W. Mitchell- (Maryhill)
Wilson, Col. M. J. (Richmond)


Simm, M. T.
Thorpe, Captain John Henry
Wise, Frederick


Smith, Sir Harold (Warrington)
Tickler, Thomas George
Wood, Major Sir S. Hill (High Peak)


Sprot, Colonel Sir Alexander
Townley, Maximilian G.
Woolcock, William James U.


Stanley, Major Hon. G. (Preston)
Tryon, Major George Clement
Worsfold, T. Cato


Stanton, Charles Butt
Turton, Edmund Russborough
Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.


Stephenson, Lieut.-Colonel H. K.
Waddington, R.
Yate, Colonel Sir Charles Edward


Strauss, Edward Anthony
Wallace, J.
Yeo, Sir Alfred William


Sturrock, J. Leng
Walton, J. (York, W. R., Don Valley)
Young, E. H. (Norwich)


Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray Fraser
Warner, Sir T. Courtenay T.
Young, Sir Frederick W. (Swindon)


Sugden, W. H.
Weston, Colonel John Wakefield



Surtees, Brigadier-General H. C.
Wheler, Col. Granville C. H.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Sutherland, Sir William
White, Col. G. D. (Southport)
Colonel Leslie Wilson and Mr.


Sykes, Sir Charles (Huddersfield)
Wild, Sir Ernest Edward
Dudley Ward.

Main Question again proposed.

Mr. T. GRIFFITHS: I beg to move, at the end of the Question, to add the words
at which the Estimate presented to this House on 7th February is put down as the first Order of the Day and then proceeded with.
The Leader of the House has promised to try to meet those who are opposed to the Resolution, and I think he ought to accept this Amendment. It is no more than a protective Amendment. We agree that it is absolutely essential that these Supplementary Estimates should be carried through the House before the end of the financial year, and we want sufficient time to examine and scrutinise the Estimates that are submitted to the House, and we ask the Government that unless Estimates are put on the Order Paper for the Tuesday and for the Wednesday and for the Friday that the private Members should get the Tuesday evening and. Wednesday evening for their Motions and Friday for their private Bills. The Leader of the House has just stated that no Bills will be introduced between now and 31st March unless they are urgent Bills. We appeal now to the Leader of the House to accept this Amendment. That would prove his sincerity in so far as his promises are concerned. I therefore move this Amendment.

Mr. WIGNALL: I beg to second the Amendment.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I could not accept the Amendment which the hon. Gentleman has moved, and I do not think that, when I have submitted my reflections upon it, he will himself desire to persist in it. There is one other Supplementary Estimate presented besides that which was presented on the 7th, and all that he says in relation to the priority to be given to the existing Supplementary Estimates
could be said in regard to the Additional. I should say that this is an Army Supplementary Estimate of charges which have only just matured for payment, though incurred a long time ago. It is an excess Estimate for the transport home of troops withdrawn from the further theatres of war where they have been detained. That ought to go pari passu in his Amendment. I have another and more serious objection. It would prevent our using any of the occasions derived from what, but for this Motion, would be private Members' time, for making progress with the Irish Bill, and I am sure the hon. Gentleman does not mean to do. that.

Mr. GRIFFITHS: No.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: We have, allotted provisionally, in expectation of this Motion, to-morrow and Friday for the Irish Bill. We shall be absolutely unable to conclude the Second Reading of the Irish Bill on Friday if his Amendment were carried. I know he and his friends are anxious that the Bill should go through with the greatest possible expedition, and I hope, in view of the explanation I have offered, he will consent to withdraw his Amendment.

Sir D. MACLEAN: Whatever may be the technical defects of the Amendment, it raises the question whether Supplementary Estimates are going to be taken, at a late hour of the night or are not?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: No it does not raise that at all.

Sir D. MACLEAN: It does.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: On a point of Order. Is it in order to discuss upon this Amendment, which confines the Motion to occasions when a Supplementary Estimate is put down at the, opening of business and is proceeded with, the question of whether any business should be proceeded with after 11 o'clock?

Mr. SPEAKER: I think it would not open the way for an argument on that question. As I understand the right hon. Gentleman's remark, this Amendment would have the effect that precedence should only be given to the Government on days on which Estimates were set down as first orders. The right hon. Gentleman could not argue the point, but I think he might be allowed to ask a question.

Sir D. MACLEAN: The Leader of the House apparently regards this question as a rather difficult and dangerous one for him, and I do not blame him for trying to stop any questions.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Is that quite fair? The question has been put to me, and I have already answered it with perfect candour and frankness.

Sir D. MACLEAN: I am sorry a private interjection was made, because I was going to say at once that if the right hon. Gentleman, who is not at all a bad judge of fairness, thinks I have been unfair to him, I am going to withdraw—

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I beg to withdraw and apologise.

Sir D. MACLEAN: —and to ask my question once again, which the Speaker has permitted to do, whether we can take it, not as an absolute pledge, but as an agreed understanding that Supplementary Estimates will not be taken after 11 o'clock at night. That is all I want to know.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: This Motion gives me no power to take Supplementary Estimates after 11 o'clock, except on Reports of Supply. In order to obtain that power, I should have to come to the House and take its decision again. My desire is to avoid taking any Estimates, or the urgent Bills, after 11 o'clock if I possibly can. I will do my best to secure it, but I cannot give an absolute pledge. If the necessary business does not require the time which I am securing for it, a fortiori we shall not try to take it after 11 o'clock, but if it prove that more time be required I would sooner sit once or twice after 11 o'clock than have to face the House with a time-table and an automatic guillotine. I think it would be the lesser of the two evils to sit once or twice after 11 o'clock, but I hope it will not be necessary, and I will do my best to avoid it.

Mr. T. GRIFFITHS: The Leader of the House suggested that it was impossible to accept the Amendment on account of the Irish Bill. I agree. We want to assist the Government in getting this Irish Bill through as expeditiously as possible. Will he give us a promise that, outside the Irish Bill, no other unimportant Bill shall he placed on the Order Paper before the Estimates on the Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I have already said I will not use the time taken from private Members except for Estimates, financial business, getting the Speaker out of the Chair, the Consolidated Fund Bill, and that sort of thing, except for urgent financial business and other Bills which are urgent in point of time. I will not use it for the general programme of the Government where there is no point of urgency in getting a particular Bill passed, so long as it is passed in the course of the Session. I think the pledge I have already given covers what my hon. Friend really asks for.

Mr. GRIFFITHS: On that assurance, I ask leave to withdraw.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: I beg to move, at the end of the Question, to add the words
but such time as is taken from private Members up to the end of the financial year shall be restored to them as soon as may be afterwards.
If the professions of the Government are really to be taken at their face value, we have surrendered our private Members' time in order to get the finance through, but we may rightly ask that the time we have surrendered should be restored to us when the pressure of work is over. Up to 31st March we shall sacrifice six or seven Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. We ask to have those dates given back to us after 31st March in the form of an extension of the number of Fridays which are normally given to private Members after Whitsuntide, and an extension of the number of Tuesdays which are given up to Whitsun. At present Tuesday is a private Members' evening up to Easter. We think we are right in asking for that up to Whitsuntide, as we have lost it up to Easter. If we cannot get our days back before Whitsuntide, after that date we
might also have Tuesday and Wednesday evenings for private Members' Resolutions. It is pretty obvious that there is not very much work for the Government to do this Session. We hear stories of an early Dissolution as soon as the Government can get through its work. Perhaps it would be as well if private Members were able to voice the views of their constituents before a Dissolution rather than on the hustings at the Dissolution, and it would be an advantage that matters in which we are interested should be discussed. But the main point is this: The Government, to their own regret, according to their own statement, have had to take private Members' time during this financial year. If they are in earnest in regretting that, they can put everything right by restoring to private Members, after 31st March, the days they have taken from them before 31st March.

Mr. G. LOCKER-LAMPSON: I beg to second the Amendment.
I do not in the least want to be unreasonable. Everyone recognises the fairness of the course my right hon. Friend proposes, and I am sure if he can make a concession he will do his best to so. He has made one concession, but I really want to know what it amounts to. He has told us that if any of these days are not taken up by Government business he will give them back to private Members, and after all he has told us the Government have an enormous amount of business to get through, and they must take the time of the House. Therefore what really does the concession amount to? Does he himself think there is the slightest chance of one or two or three of these days being given back to private Members? I do not believe it for a moment. I think he has made this concession in the goodness of his heart, hoping that it may come true, but I do not believe for a moment it will materialise. The Standing Orders rule the whole of cur procedure. In the very forefront of them are these privileges to private Members. Standing Order 4 says:
Government Business shall have precedence at every Sitting except at a quarter past 8 on Tuesday and Wednesday and the Sitting on Friday. At a quarter past 8 on Tuesday and Wednesday Notices of Motion and Public Bills other than Government Bills shall have precedence of Government Business, and any Government Business then under consideration shall, without Question put, be postponed.
The very fact that that Standing Order is in the forefront of the whole of our Standing Orders shows what enormous importance has been attached to the rights of private Members. I feel that unless we make a stand here and now every year Ministers will come down, in perfect good faith, and propose that that Standing Order shall be wiped out. As private Members we cannot afford to let that Standing Order become a dead letter, because if we treat this as a precedent, year after year, exactly the same thing will happen, and we shall in the future continue to lose our private Members' rights before Easter. I handed in an Amendment to give one day after Easter in return for what we are giving up before the end of the financial year. Cannot my right hon. Friend give us something in exchange for what he has taken from us? I hope he will, because a great many private Members feel most strongly that during the last few years their rights have gradually been whittled away.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I will repeat what I said earlier in the evening as to the use to which the time will be put. My hon. Friend asked me whether I think the concession I have made has any value. It has this value, that it guarantees the House against the, abuse of the Motion by the Government for non-urgent business. Whether it will result in its being available to private Members depends upon private Members. If the right hon. Gentleman opposite is right in thinking that my estimate of the time required for the discussion of this financial business is altogether exaggerated, there will be time. If, on the other hand, the House prefers to discuss at length the financial business of the Government and urgent Bills, rather than to forego part of that discussion in order to get back their private Members' time, my concession will result in no return of private Members' time. The object of the Amendment is to secure that that which is taken from private Members before the end of the financial year shall be made good after the end of the financial year. I have dealt with that subject already. I said the, experiment had been tried two years ago. Then the time was taken up to Easter, not up to the end of the financial year, and when my right hon. Friend was pressed to repeat the experi-
ment he urged the House not to take that course. As the best answer to what the Mover and Seconder of the Amendment have said, I will read the words of my right hon. Friend on that occasion. Substitute the financial year for Easter, and they hold absolutely good:
I am sure that I shall be asked to make up after Easter for the time now taken from private Members. I hope the House of Commons will not agree to that for this reason: We did it last year, and the giving of this extra time later in the Session was part of the reason for the congestion which followed in the business during the whole of the Session. I am sure it will be necessary, if we are compelled to take private Members' time now, not to extend it beyond Easter. Indeed, I think"—
I venture to call the attention of right, hon. and hon. Members opposite to what follows—
and I hope the House will agree that if there be time to spare for a general discussion of finance the wishes of the House as a whole will be better met by giving opportunities for discussion of subjects which are desired by the House than by leaving those questions to the accident of the ballot. I think the House will give the Government credit for always trying to find time for the discussion of any subject which is desired by a large number of Members, and we shall continue to do that."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22nd February, 1921; cols. 797–798, Vol. 138.]
Private Members' days provide, really, almost the only chance of recreation which the Leader of the House gets. Private Members' Motions not infrequently afford to the Leader of the House an opportunity, which others enjoy more frequently, of occasionally taking his dinner outside these precincts. I have at least as much interest in preserving these private Members' days as any Member of this House, and it is only because I am convinced that public business requires this sacrifice that I ask the House to agree to the Motion. I should add that although there is no great contentious Measure, there are more small departmental Bills which must be passed this Session, or which it is desirable to pass this Session, than hon. Members appear to appreciate.

Mr. HOGGE: I was not at all impressed by the arguments used in the speech of my right hon. Friend's predecessor. Take the point upon which my right hon. Friend laid most stress, namely, the statement that it is far better to leave it to the Government to
provide time which the House asks for rather than to the accident of the ballot to which Members are entitled. My right hon. Friend is an experienced Parliamentarian and a very excellent Leader of the House, but I venture to challenge him to name the days which the Government have given to a general demand more than he can count on the fingers of his right hand inside of a single Session. Over and over again the Government have denied a day for discussion which has been afterwards forced by 40 Members on a question of urgency arising out of a question put in the House. It is like extracting blood out of a stone to get a day for the discussion of any particular subject. The value of the ballot is this, however transient the luck of a particular Member may be, that the Government cannot destroy the chance of a private Member in the ballot. That belongs to us, and if any private Member has the good fortune to get a place in the ballot, it means that on a Tuesday or a Wednesday he has two and a half hours in which to elaborate and adumbrate the particular subject in which he is interested. More than that, it means that a responsible Minister has to be here twice during the week to answer for his particular Department. If there is one thing that the House of Commons has a right to complain of—present company excepted, because I do not make this criticism of the Leader of the House, who fulfils his functions on that Bench in regard to time and everything else—is that one of the most difficult things is to secure the presence of Ministers in this House to listen to particular discussions. Twice a week the private Member, who has no other power, has the right to have a Minister here in order that he may reply to the discussions.
The second point covered by the Leader of the House in his quotation of his predecessor's argument was that the experiment was unsuccessful, and that there was repeated at a later period of the Session precisely the same difficulty. That was not the fault of private Members, but the fault of the Government, and of the methods the Government take in introducing their Bills. As a Parliamentarian, pure and simple, I believe the right hon. Gentleman will agree with me that one of the greatest causes of delay
in this House is due to the fact that the Government never take the Second Reading of their big King's Speech Bills before Easter, and that the later you throw the Second Reading of cardinal Measures, you are bound to have at the end of the Session, on the Floor of this House, a crowd of first-class Measures coming for Report and Third Reading. I see that the Patronage Secretary to the Treasury, with whom I have discussed this subject on many occasions, agrees with me thoroughly. He knows that to be true, and every hon. Member knows it to be true. It is not the fault of the private Member, but of the Leader of the House. He ought to be able to restrain his Ministers up to a point, and the Ministers ought to be able to control their Departments so that we could have these Measures discussed in sufficient time, in order to avoid the congestion of business at the later part of the Session. Therefore, the two arguments resurrected from the speech of the late Leader of the House do not impress me.
One thing seems obvious. My right hon. Friend seems to be quite adamant on this particular point. He will remember that between Easter and Whitsuntide we have a Wednesday and we have two Fridays after Whitsuntide for winding up private Bills which have got to the stage where they have a chance of getting through. Private Members are going to lose their Fridays up to Easter. That means that no private Members who have the luck of the ballot will be able to make any headway with their Bills.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: indicated dissent.

Mr. HOGGE: It really means that. We shall have one Friday before Easter. This is the maximum we shall get up to the Easter Recess. Then we shall have the Recess, and come back in May to business. Therefore, any private Member who has drawn a place in the ballot

is unlikely to make any progress with his Bill. If private Members are willing to give up Fridays between Easter and Whitsuntide, will the right hon. Gentleman restore Tuesday night for the discussion of Resolutions? I am making this offer entirely on my own initiative. The Government would get Friday, a full day, and we should get Tuesday evening. We have the Wednesday between Easter and Whitsuntide, and we should get 2½ hours every Tuesday. The Government in getting Friday would not only have a full day but a better day, now that we meet at 11 o'clock than when we met at 12 o'clock. That would be 7 weeks of 2 hours, which would only amount to 14 hours, less than two effective Parliamentary days. The Leader of the House is going to refuse to give to the private Member the equivalent of two days' Parliamentary time between Easter and Whitsuntide. If that is the case, it is a ridiculous position. It is a monstrous thing that we should be reduced to the position of the Leader of the House refusing to give the private Members the equivalent of two Parliamentary days for discussion of private Members' Motions. The exigencies of public business are not such that such action is necessary. If the right hon. Gentleman would adopt my suggestion, he would meet us fairly, and he would get a full day on Fridays, which is a much more effective Friday than ever he had before.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Before—

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: rose in his place, and claimed to move "That the Question be now put."

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. and gallant Member (Colonel Wedgwood) had already spoken.

Question put, "That the Question be now put."

The House divided: Ayes, 211; Noes, 66.

Division No. 6.]
AYES.
[7.59 p.m.


Agg-Gardner, Sir James Tynte
Barnett, Major Richard W.
Bridgeman, Rt. Hon. William Clive


Ainsworth, Captain Charles
Barnston, Major Harry
Brittain, Sir Harry


Amery, Leopold C. M. S.
Barrand, A. R.
Broad, Thomas Tucker


Armstrong, Henry Bruce
Bartley-Denniss, Sir Edmund Robert
Bruton, Sir James


Astbury, Lieut.-Com, Frederick W.
Bell, Lieut.-Col. W. C. H. (Devizes)
Buchanan, Lieut. Colonel A. L. H.


Atkey, A. R.
Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake)
Buckley, Lieut.-Colonel A.


Ba[...]our, George (Hampstead)
Birchall, J. Dearman
Burdon, Colonel Rowland


Balfour, Sir R. (Glasgow, Partick)
Borwick, Major G. O.
Burgoyne, Lt-Col. Alan Hughes


Banner, Sir John S. Harmood.
Boscawen, Rt. Hon. Sir A. Griffith-
Campbell, J. D. G.


Barlow, Sir Montague
Bowyer, Captain G. W. E.
Campion, Lieut.-Colonel W. R.


Barnes, Rt. Hon. G. (Glas., Gorbals)
Breese, Major Charles E.
Carr, W. Theodore


Casey, T. W.
Hurst, Lieut.-Colonel Gerald B.
Rees, Sir J. D. (Nottingham, East)


Cautley, Henry Strother
Inskip, Thomas Walker H.
Remer, J. R.


Cecil, Rt. Hon. Evelyn (Birm., Aston)
Jephcott, A. R.
Renwick, Sir George


Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. A. (Birm., W.)
Jodrell, Neville Paul
Richardson, Sir Alex. (Gravesend)


Chilcot, Lieut.-Com. Harry W.
Johnson, Sir Stanley
Roberts, Rt. Hon. G. H. (Norwich)


Clough, Sir Robert
Johnstone, Joseph
Roberts, Samuel (Hereford, Hereford)


Coats, Sir Stuart
Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)
Roberts, Sir S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)


Cockerill, Brigadier-General G. K.
Jones, J. T. (Carmarthen, Llanelly)
Robinson, s. (Brecon and Radnor)


Colvin, Brig.-General Richard Beale
Kellaway, Rt. Hon. Fredk. George
Rodger, A. K.


Conway, Sir W. Martin
Kenyon, Barnet
Roundell, Colonel R. F.


Coote, Colin Reith (Isle of Ely)
Kidd, James
Royds, Lieut.-Colonel Edmund


Cope, Major William
King, Captain Henry Douglas
Rutherford, Colonel Sir J. (Darwen)


Cowan, D. M. (Scottish Universities)
Lambert, Rt. Hon. George
Rutherford, Sir W. W. (Edge Hill)


Daizlel, Sir D. (Lambeth, Brixton)
Larmor, Sir Joseph
Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)


Davies, Sir David Sanders (Denbigh)
Law, Alfred J. (Rochdale)
Scott, A. M. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)


Davies, Sir Joseph (Chester, Crewe)
Lewis, Rt. Hon. J. H. (Univ., Wales)
Scott, Sir Samuel (St. Marylebone)


Dean, Commander P. T.
Lewis, T. A. (Glam., Pontyprldd)
Seager, Sir William


Dockrell, Sir Maurice
Lloyd-Greame, Sir p.
Shaw, Hon. Alex. (Kilmarnock)


Doyle, N. Grattan
Locker-Lampson, Com. O. (H'tingd'n)
Shaw, William T. (Forfar)


Edwards, Major J. (Aberavon)
Lorden, John William
Shortt, Rt. Hon. E. (N'castle-on-T.)


Edwards, Hugh (Glam., Neath)
Loseby, Captain C. E.
Simm, M. T.


Elliot, Capt. Walter E. (Lanark)
Lowther, Maj.-Gen. Sir C. (Penrith)
Smith, Sir Harold (Warrington)


Eyres-Monsell, Com. Bolton M.
Macdonald, Rt. Hon. John Murray
Stanley, Major Hon. G. (Preston)


Falcon, Captain Michael
Mackinder, Sir H. J. (Camlachie)
Stanton, Charles Butt


Falle, Major Sir Bertram Godfray
McLaren, Hon. H. D. (Leicester)
Stephenson, Lieut.-Colonel H. K.


Farquharson, Major A. C.
M'Lean, Lieut.-Col. Charles W. W.
Strauss, Edward Anthony


Flides, Henry
McMicking, Major Gilbert
Sturrock, J. Leng


FltzRoy, Captain Hon. Edward A.
Macpherson, Rt. Hon. James I.
Sugden, W. H.


Flannery, Sir James Fortescue
Mallalieu, Frederick William
Surtees, Brigadier-General H. C.


Ford, Patrick Johnston
Malone, Major P. B. (Tottenham, S.)
Sutherland, Sir William


Foreman, Sir Henry
Manville, Edward
Sykes, Sir Charles (Huddersfield)


Forestier-Walker, L.
Meysey- Thompson, Lieut. Col. E. C.
Taylor, J.


Fraser, Major Sir Keith
Middlebrook, Sir William
Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)


Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.
Molson, Major John Elsdale
Thomson, Sir W. Mitchell- (Maryhill)


Gange, E. Stanley
Moore, Major-General Sir Newton J.
Thorpe, Captain John Henry


Gee, Captain Robert
Moore-Brabazon, Lieut.-Col. J. T. C.
Tickler, Thomas George


Gibbs, Colonel George Abraham
Moreing, Captain Algernon H.
Tryon, Major George Clement


Gilbert, James Daniel
Morrison-Bell, Major A. C.
Turton, Edmund Russborough


Gilmour, Lieut.-Colonel Sir John
Munro, Rt. Hon. Robert
Waddington, R.


Goulding, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward A.
Murchison, C. K.
Wallace, J.


Gray, Major Ernest (Accrington)
Murray, John (Leeds, West)
Walton, J. (York, W. R., Don Valley)


Green, Albert (Derby)
Murray, William (Dumfries)
Ward, William Dudley (Southampton)


Green, Joseph F. (Leicester, W.)
Neal, Arthur
Warner, Sir T. Courtenay T.


Guest, Capt. Rt. Hon. Frederick E.
Newman, Colonel J. R. P. (Finchley)
Weston, Colonel John Wakefield


Hacking, Captain Douglas H.
Nicholson, Brig.-Gen. J. (Westminster)
Wheler, Col. Granville C. H.


Hallwood, Augustine
Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield)
White, Col. G D. (Southport)


Hambro, Angus Valdemar
Norman, Major Rt. Hon. Sir Henry
Williams, C. (Tavistock)


Hamilton, Major C. G. C.
Norton-Griffiths, Lieut.-Col. Sir John
Wilioughby, Lieut.-Col. Hon. Claud


Hancock, John George
Palmer, Brigadier-General G. L.
Wise, Frederick


Hanna, George Boyle
Parry, Lieut.-Colonel Thomas Henry
Wood, Major Sir S. Hill- (High Peak)


Harmsworth, C. B. (Bedford, Luton)
Pease, Rt. Hon. Herbert Pike
Woolcock, William James U.


Harmsworth, Hon. E. C. (Kent)
Pael, Col. Hon. S. (Uxbridge, Mddx.)
Worsfold, T. Cato


Henderson, Lt.-Col. V. L. (Tradeston)
Perkins, Walter Frank
Worthlngton-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.


Hennessy, Major J. R. G.
Pickering, Colonel Emli W.
Yate, Colonel Sir Charles Edward


Hood, Sir Joseph
Pratt, John William
Yeo, Sir Alfred William


Hope, Sir H. (Stirling & Cl'ckm'nn, W.)
Purchase, H. G.
Young, E. H. (Norwich)


Hopkinson, A. (Lancaster, Mossley)
Rae, H. Norman



Hudson, R. M.
Ramsden, G. T.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Hume-Williams, Sir W. Ellis
Randles, Sir John Scurrah
Colonel Leslie Wilson and Mr.


Hunter, General Sir A. (Lancaster)
Rankin, Captain James Stuart
McCurdy.


Hurd, Percy A.
Ratcliffe, Henry Butler



NOES.


Adamson, Rt. Hon. William
Grundy, T. W.
Royce, William Stapleton


Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery)
Hartshorn, Vernon
Sexton, James


Bell, James (Lancaster, Ormskirk)
Hayday, Arthur
Shaw, Thomas (Preston)


Bramsdon, Sir Thomas
Hayward, Evan
Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)


Bromfield, William
Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Widnes)
Sitch, Charles H.


Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)
Hirst, G. H.
Swan, J. E


Cairns, John
Holmes, J. Stanley
Thomson, T. (Middlesbrough, West)


Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R.
Irving, Dan
Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton, E.)


Collins, Sir Godfrey (Greenock)
John, William (Rhondda, West)
Thorne, w. (West Ham, Plaistow)


Davies, Evan (Ebbw Vale)
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Walsh, Stephen (Lancaster, Ince)


Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)
Lawson, John James
Watts-Morgan, Lieut.-Col. D.


Davison, J. E. (Smethwick)
Lunn, William
Wedgwood, Colonel Josiah C.


Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwelity)
Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)
White, Charles F. (Derby, Western)


Edwards, G. (Norfolk, South)
Maclean, Rt. Hon. Sir D.(Midloth[...]an)
Wignall, James


Entwistle, Major C. F.
Murray, Dr. D. (Inverness & Ross)
Williams, Aneurin (Durham, Consett)


Finney, Samuel
Myers, Thomas
Wilson, James (Dudley)


Galbraith, Samuel
Naylor, Thomas Ellis
Wilson, Rt. Hon. J. W. (Stourbridge)


Gillis, William
Newbould, Alfred Ernest
Wintringham, Margaret


Glanville, Harold James
O'Grady, Captain James
Wood, Major M. M. (Aberdeen, C)


Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)
Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)
Young, Robert (Lancaster, Newton)


Graham, R. (Nelson and Colne)
Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)



Graham, W. (Edinburgh, Central).
Robertson, John
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr.


Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)
Rose, Frank H.
W. R. Smith and Mr. Hogge.

Question put accordingly, "That those words be there added."

The House divided: Ayes, 70; Noes, 205.

Division No. 7.]
AYES.
[8.8 p.m.


Adamson, Rt. Hon. William
Hartshorn, Vernon
Robertson, John


Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertlitery)
Hayday, Arthur
Rose, Frank H.


Bell, James (Lancaster, Ormskirk)
Hayward, Evan
Royce, William Stapleton


Bramsdon, Sir Thomas
Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Widnes)
Sexton, James


Bromfield, William
Hirst, G. H.
Shaw, Thomas (Preston)


Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)
Hogge, James Myles
Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)


Cairns, John
Holmes, J. Stanley
Sitch, Charles H.


Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R.
Irving, Dan
Swan, J. E.


Collins, Sir Godfrey (Greenock)
John, William (Rhondda, West)
Thomson, T. (Middlesbrough, West)


Davies, Evan (Ebbw Vale)
Johnstone, Joseph
Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton, E.)


Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow)


Davison, J. E. (Smethwick)
Lawson, John James
Walsh, Stephen (Lancaster, Ince)


Edwards, C (Monmouth, Bedwellty)
Locker-Lampson, G. (Wood Green)
Watts-Morgan, Lieut.-Col. D.


Edwards, G. (Norfolk, South)
Lunn, William
Wedgwood, Colonel Joslah C.


Entwistle, Major C. F.
Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)
White, Charles F. (Derby, Western)


Finney, Samuel
Maclean, Rt. Hn. Sir D. (Midlothian)
Wignall, James


Galbraith, Samuel
Mosley, Oswald
Williams, Aneurin (Durham, Consett)


Gillis, William
Murray, Dr. D. (Inverness & Ross)
Wilson, James (Dudley)


Glanville, Harold James
Myers, Thomas
Wilson, Rt. Hon. J. W. (Stourbridge)


Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)
Naylor, Thomas Ellis
Wintringham, Margaret


Graham, R. (Nelson and Colne)
Newbould, Alfred Ernest
Wood, Major M. M. (Aberdeen, C.)


Graham, W. (Edinburgh, Central)
O'Grady, Captain James
Young, Robert (Lancaster, Newton)


Grundy, T. W.
Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)



Harmsworth, Hon. E. C. (Kent)
Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr.




T. Griffiths and Mr. W. R. Smith.


NOES.


Agg-Gardner, Sir James Tynte
Doyle, N. Grattan
Lambert, Rt. Hon. George


Ainsworth, Captain Charles
Edwards, Major J. (Aberavon)
Larmor, Sir Joseph


Amery, Leopold C. M. S.
Edwards, Hugh (Glam., Neath)
Law, Alfred J. (Rochdale)


Armstrong, Henry Bruce
Elliot, Capt. Walter E. (Lanark)
Lewis, Rt. Hon. J. H. (Univ., Wales)


Astbury, Lieut.-Com. Frederick W.
Eyres-Monsell, Com. Bolton M.
Lewis, T. A. (Glam., Pontypridd)


Atkey, A. R.
Falcon, Captain Michael
Lloyd-Greame, Sir P.


Balfour, George (Hampstead)
Falle, Major Sir Bertram Godfray
Locker-Lampson, Com. O. (H'tlngd'n)


Balfour, Sir R. (Glasgow, Partick)
Farquharson, Major A. C.
Lorden, John William


Banner, sir John S. Harmood-
Flldes, Henry
Lowther, Maj.-Gen. Sir C. (Penrith)


Barlow, Sir Montague
FitzRoy, Captain Hon. Edward A.
Macdonald, Rt. Hon. John Murray


Barnes, Rt. Hon. G. (Glas., Gorbals)
Flannery, Sir James Fortescue
Mackinder, Sir H. J. (Camlachle)


Barnett, Major Richard W.
Ford, Patrick Johnston
McLaren, Hon. H. D. (Leicester)


Barnston, Major Harry
Foreman, Sir Henry
M'Lean, Lieut.-Col. Charles W. W.


Barrand, A. R.
Forestier Walker, L.
McMicking, Major Gilbert


Bartley-Denniss, Sir Edmund Robert
Fraser, Major Sir Keith
Macpherson, Rt. Hon. James I.


Bell, Lieut.-Col. W. C. H. (Devizes)
Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.
Mallalieu, Frederick William


Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake)
Gange, E. Stanley
Malone, Major P. B. (Tottenham, S.)


Birchall, J. Dearman
Gee, Captain Robert
Manville, Edward


Borwick, Major G. O.
Gibbs, Colonel George Abraham
Meysey-Thompson, Lieut.-Col. E. C.


Boscawen, Rt. Hon. Sir A. Griffith-
Gilbert, James Daniel
Middlebrook, Sir William


Bowyer, Captain G. W. E.
Gilmour, Lieut.-Colonel Sir John
Molson, Major John Elsdale


Breese, Major Charles E.
Goulding, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward A.
Moore, Major-General Sir Newton J.


Bridgeman, Rt. Hon. William Clive
Gray, Major Ernest (Accrington)
Moore-Brabazon, Lieut.-Col. J. T. C.


Brittain, Sir Harry
Green, Albert (Derby)
Moreing, Captain Algernon H.


Broad, Thomas Tucker
Green, Joseph F. (Leicester, W.)
Morrison-Bell, Major A. C.


Bruton, Sir James
Guest, Capt. Rt. Hon. Frederick E.
Munro, Rt. Hon. Robert


Buchanan, Lieut.-Colonel A. L. H.
Hacking, Captain Douglas H.
Murchison, C. K.


Buckley, Lieut.-Colonel A.
Hallwood, Augustine
Murray, John (Leeds, West)


Burdon, Colonel Rowland
Hambro, Angus Valdemar
Murray, William (Dumfries)


Burgoyne, Lt.-Col. Alan Hughes
Hamilton, Major C. G. C.
Neal, Arthur


Campbell, J. D. G.
Hancock, John George
Newman, Colonel J. R. P. (Finchley)


Campion, Lieut.-Colonel W. R.
Hanna, George Boyle
Nicholson, Brig.-Gen. J. (Westminster)


Carr, W. Theodore
Harmsworth, C. B. (Bedford, Luton)
Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield)


Casey, T. W.
Henderson, Lt.-Col. V. L. (Tradeston)
Norman, Major Rt. Hon. Sir Henry


Cautley, Henry Strother
Hennessy, Major J. R. G.
Norton-Griffiths, Lieut.-Col. sir John


Cecil, Rt. Hon. Evelyn (Birm., Aston)
Hood, Sir Joseph
Palmer, Brigadier-General G. L.


Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. A. (Birm. W.)
Hope, Sir H.(Stirling & Cl'ckm'nn, W.)
Parry, Lieut.-Colonel Thomas Henry


Chilcot, Lieut.-Com. Harry W.
Hopkinson, A. (Lancaster, Mossley)
Pease, Rt. Hon. Herbert Pike


Clough, sir Robert
Hudson, R. M.
Peel, Col. Hon. S. (Uxbridge, Mddx.)


Coats, Sir Stuart
Hume-Williams, Sir W. Ellis
Perkins, Walter Frank


Cockerill, Brigadier-General G. K.
Hurd, Percy A.
Pickering, Colonel Emil W.


Colvin, Brig.-General Richard Beale
Hurst, Lieut.-Colonel Gerald B.
Pratt, John William


Conway, Sir W. Martin
Insklp, Thomas Walker H.
Purchase, H. G.


Coote, Colin Reith (Isle of Ely)
Jephcott, A. R.
Rae, H. Norman


Cope, Major William
Jodrell, Neville Paul
Randies, Sir John Scurrah


Cowan, D. M. (Scottish Universities)
Johnson, Sir Stanley
Rankin, Captain James Stuart


Dalziel, Sir D. (Lambeth, Brixton)
Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)
Ratcliffe, Henry Butler


Davies, sir David Sanders (Denbigh)
Jones, J. T. (Carmarthen, Llanelly)
Rees, Sir J. D. (Nottingham, East)


Davies, Sir Joseph (Chester, Crewe)
Kellaway, Rt. Hon. Fredk. George
Remer, J. R.


Dean, Commander P. T.
Kidd, James
Renwick, Sir George


Dockrell, Sir Maurice
King, Captain Henry Douglas
Richardson, Sir Alex. (Gravesend)


Roberts, Rt. Hon. G. H. (Norwich)
Stanley, Major Hon. G. (Preston)
Weston, Colonel John Wakefield


Roberts, Samuel (Hereford, Hereford)
Stanton, Charles Butt
Wheler, Col. Granville C. H.


Roberts, Sir S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)
Strauss, Edward Anthony
White, Col. G. D. (Southport)


Robinson, S. (Brecon and Radnor)
Sturrock, J. Leng
Williams, C. (Tavistock)


Rodger, A. K.
Sugden, W, H.
Willoughby, Lieut.-Col. Hon. Claud


Roundell, Colonel R. F.
Sutherland, Sir William
Wise, Frederick


Royds, Lieut.-Colonel Edmund
Sykes, Sir Charles (Huddersfield)
Wood, Major Sir S. Hill- (High Peak)


Rutherford, Colonel sir J. (Darwen)
Taylor, J.
Woolcock, William James U.


Rutherford, Sir W. W. (Edge Hill)
Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)
Worsfold, T. Cato


Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)
Thomson, Sir W. Mitchell- (Maryhill)
Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.


Scott, A. M. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)
Thorpe, Captain John Henry
Yate, Colonel Sir Charles Edward


Scott, Sir Samuel (St. Marylebone)
Tickler, Thomas George
Yeo, Sir Alfred William


Seager, Sir William
Tryon, Major George Clement
Young, E. H. (Norwich)


Shaw, Hon. Alex. (Kilmarnock)
Waddington, R.



Shaw, William T. (Forfar)
Wallace, J.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES—


Shortt, Rt. Hon. E. (N'castle-on-T.)
Walton, J. (York, W. R., Don Valley)
Colonel Leslie Wilson and Mr.


Simm, M. T.
Ward, William Dudley (Southampton)
McCurdy.


Smith, Sir Harold (Warrington)
Warner, Sir T. Courtenay T.

Main Question again proposed.

Several hon. Members rose—

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: rose in his place, and claimed "That the Main Question be now put."

Question put accordingly. "That, until the end of the financial year, Government business do have precedence at every Sitting."

The House divided: Ayes, 199; Noes, 66.

Division No. 8.]
AYES.
[8.15 p.m.


Agg-Gardner, Sir James Tynte
Edwards, John H. (Glam., Neath)
Lloyd-Greame, Sir P.


Ainsworth, Captain Charles
Elliot, Capt. Walter E. (Lanark)
Locker-Lampson, Com. O. (H'tlngd'n)


Amery, Leopold C. M. S.
Eyres-Monsell, Com. Bolton M.
Lorden, John William


Armstrong, Henry Bruce
Falcon, Captain Michael
Lowther, Maj.-Gen. Sir C. (Penrith)


Astbury, Lieut-Com. Frederick W.
Falle, Major Sir Bertram Godfray
Macdonald, Rt. Hon. John Murray


Atkey, A. R.
Fildes, Henry
Mackinder, Sir H. J. (Camlachie)


Balfour, George (Hampstead)
FitzRoy, Captain Hon. Edward A.
McLaren, Hon. H. D. (Leicester)


Banner, Sir John S. Harmood-
Flannery, Sir James Fortescue
M'Lean, Lieut.-Col. Charles W. W.


Barlow, Sir Montague
Ford, Patrick Johnston
McMicking, Major Gilbert


Barnes, Rt. Hon. G. (Glas., Gorbals)
Foreman, Sir Henry
Macpherson, Rt. Hon. James I.


Barnett, Major Richard W.
Forestier-Walker, L.
Mallalleu, Frederick William


Barnston, Major Harry
Fraser, Major Sir Keith
Malone, Major P. B. (Tottenham, S.)


Barrand, A. R.
Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E
Manville, Edward


Bartley-Denniss, Sir Edmund Robert
Gange, E. Stanley
Meysey-Thompson, Lieut.-Col. E. C.


Bell, Lieut.-Col. W. C. H. (Devizes)
Gee, Captain Robert
Middlebrook, Sir William


Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake)
Gibbs, Colonel George Abraham
Molson, Major John Elsdale


Betterton, Henry B.
Gilbert, James Daniel
Moore, Major-General Sir Newton J.


Birchall, J. Dearman
Gilmour, Lieut.-Colonel Sir John
Moore-Brabazon, Lieut.-Col. J. T. C.


Borwick, Major G. O.
Gray, Major Ernest (Accrington)
Moreing, Captain Algernon H.


Boscawen, Rt. Hon. Sir A. Griffith-
Green, Albert (Derby)
Morrison-Bell, Major A. C.


Bowyer, Captain G. W. E.
Green, Joseph F. (Leicester, W.)
Munro, Rt. Hon. Robert


Breese, Major Charles E.
Guest, Capt. Rt. Hon. Frederick E.
Murchison, C. K.


Bridgeman, Rt. Hon. William Clive
Hacking, Captain Douglas H.
Murray, John (Leeds, West)


Brittain, Sir Harry
Hallwood, Augustine
Murray, William (Dumfries)


Broad, Thomas Tucker
Hamilton, Major C. G. C.
Neal, Arthur


Eruton, Sir James
Hancock, John George
Newman, Colonel J. R. p. (Finchley)


Buchanan, Lieut.-Colonel A. L. H.
Hanna, George Boyle
Nicholson, Brig.-Gen. J. (Westminster)


Buckley, Lieut.-Colonel A.
Harmsworth, C. B. (Bedford, Luton)
Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield)


Burdon, Colonel Rowland
Harmsworth, Hon. E. C (Kent)
Palmer, Brigadier-General G. L.


Burgoyne, Lt.-Col. Alan Hughes
Henderson, Lt.-Col. V. L. (Tradeston)
Parry, Lieut.-Colonel Thomas Henry


Campbell, J. D. G.
Hennessy, Major J. R. G.
Pease, Rt. Hon. Herbert Pike


Campion, Lieut.-Colonel W. R.
Hood, Sir Joseph
Peel, Col. Hn. S. (Uxbridge, Mddx.)


Carr, W. Theodore
Hope, Sir H.(Stirling & Cl'ckm'nn, W.)
Perkins, Walter Frank


Casey, T. W
Hopkinson, A. (Lancaster, Mossley)
Pickering, Colonel Emit W.


Cautley, Henry Strother
Hudson, R. M.
Pratt, John William


Cecil, Rt. Hon. Evelyn (Birm., Aston)
Hurd, Percy A.
Purchase, H. G.


Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. A. (Birm., W).
Hurst, Lieut-Colonel Gerald B.
Rae, H. Norman


Chilcot, Lieut.Com. Harry W.
Inskip, Thomas Walker H.
Ramsden, G. T.


Clough, Sir Robert
Jephcott, A. R.
Randies, Sir John Scurrah


Coats, Sir Stuart
Jodrell, Neville Paul
Rankin, Captain James Stuart


Cockerill, Brigadier-General G. K.
Johnson, Sir Stanley
Ratcliffe, Henry Butler


Colvin, Brig.-General Richard Beale
Johnstone, Joseph
Rees, Sir J. D. (Nottingham, East)


Conway, Sir W. Martin
Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)
Remer, J. R.


Coote, Colin Reith (Isle of Ely)
Jones, J. T. (Carmarthen, Llanelly)
Renwick, Sir George


Cope, Major William
Kellaway, Rt. Hon. Fredk. George
Richardson, Sir Alex. (Gravesend)


Cowan, D. M. (Scottish Universities)
Kenyon, Barnet
Roberts, Rt. Hon. G. H. (Norwich)


Dalziel, Sir D. (Lambeth, Brixton)
Kidd, James
Roberts, Samuel (Hereford, Hereford)


Davies, Sir David Sanders (Denbigh)
King, Captain Henry Douglas
Roberts, Sir S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)


Davies, Sir Joseph (Chester, Crewe)
Lambert, R1. Hon. George
Robinson, S, (Brecon and Radnor)


Dean, Commander P. T.
Larmor, Sir Joseph
Rodger, A. K.


Dockrell, Sir Maurice
Law, Alfred J. (Rochdale)
Roundell, Colonel R. F.


Doyle, N. Grattan
Lewis, Rt. Hon. J. H. (Univ., Wales)
Rutherford, Colonel Sir J. (Darwen)


Edwards, Major J. (Aberavon)
Lewis, T. A. (Glam., Pontypridd)
Rutherford, Sir W. W. (Edge Hill)


Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)
Sykes, Sir Charles (Huddersfield)
Williams, C. (Tavistock)


Scott, A. M. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)
Taylor, J.
Willoughby, Lieut.-Col. Hon. Claud


Seager, Sir William
Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)
Wise, Frederick


Shaw, Hon. Alex. (Kilmarnock)
Thomson, Sir W. Mitchell- (Maryhill)
Wood, Major Sir S. Hill- (High Peak)


Shaw, William T. (Forfar)
Thorpe, Captain John Henry
Woolcock, William James U.


Shortt, Rt. Hon. E. (N'castle-on-T.)
Tickler, Thomas George
Worsfold, T. Cato


Simm, M. T.
Tryon, Major George Clement
Worthington-Eyans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.


Smith, Sir Harold (Warrington)
Waddington, R.
Yate, Colonel Sir Charles Edward


Stanley, Major Hon. G. (Preston)
Wallace, J.
Yeo, Sir Alfred William


Stanton, Charles Butt
Walton, J. (York, w. R, Don Valley)
Young, E. H. (Norwich)


Stephenson, Lieut.-Colonel H. K.
Ward, William Dudley (Southampton)



Strauss, Edward Anthony
Warner, Sir T. Courtenay T.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Sturrock, J. Leng
Weston, Colonel John Wakefield
Colonel Leslie Wilson and Mr.


Sugden, W. H.
Wheler, Col. Granviile C. H.
McCurdy.


Sutherland, Sir William
White, Col. G. D. (Southport)



NOES.


Adamson, Rt. Hon. William
Hartshorn, Vernon
Royce, William Stapleton


Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery)
Hayday, Arthur
Sexton, James


Bell, James (Lancaster, Ormskirk)
Hayward, Evan
Shaw, Thomas (Preston)


Bramsdon, Sir Thomas
Hirst, G. H.
Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)


Bromfield, William
Hogge, James Myles
Sitch, Charles H.


Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)
Holmes, J. Stanley
Smith, W R. (Wellingborough)


Cairns, John
Irving, Dan
Swan, J. E.


Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R.
John, William (Rhondda, West)
Thomson, T. (Middlesbrough, West)


Davies, Evan (Ebbw Vale)
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow)


Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)
Lawson, John James
Walsh, Stephen (Lancaster, Ince)


Davison, J. E. (Smethwick)
Lunn, William
Watts-Morgan, Lieut.-Col. D.


Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwelity)
Maclean, Nell (Glasgow, Govan)
Wedgwood, Colonel Josiah C.


Edwards, G. (Norfolk, South)
Maclean, Rt. Hn. Sir D. (Midlothian)
White, Charles F. (Derby, Western)


Entwistle, Major C. F.
Mosley, Oswald
Wignall, James


Finney, Samuel
Murray, Dr. D. (Inverness and Ross)
Williams, Aneurin (Durham, Consett)


Galbraith, Samuel
Myers, Thomas
Wilson, James (Dudley)


Gillis, William
Naylor, Thomas Ellis
Wilson, Rt. Hon. J. W. (Stourbridge)


Glanville, Harold James
Newbould, Alfred Ernest
Wintringham, Margaret


Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)
O'Grady, Captain James
Wood, Major M. M. (Aberdeen, C.)


Graham, R. (Nelson and Colne)
Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)
Young, Robert (Lancaster, Newton)


Graham, W. (Edinburgh, Central)
Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)



Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)
Robertson, John
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr.


Grundy, T. W.
Rose, Frank H.
Arthur Henderson and Mr. G.




Thorne.

Ordered,
That until the end of the financial Year, Government Business do have precedence at every Sitting.

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY.

Considered in Committee.

[Mr. JAMES HOPE in the Chair.]

CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATE, 1921–22.

CLASS VI.

SUPERANNUATION AND RETIRED ALLOWANCES.

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £455,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1922, for Superannuation, Compensation, Compassionate, and Additional Allowances, and Gratuities under sundry Statutes, for Compassionate Allowances, Gratuities, and Supplementary Pensions awarded by the Treasury, and for the Salaries of Medical Referees.

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Hilton Young): In introducing this first Supplementary Estimate that has appeared before the Committee this Session, I should like in the first place to give some explanation—I hope no apology is needed—of the shape in which the Supplementary Estimates are presented on this occasion, I think for the first time; that is, they are put into the hands of the Committee in an octavo shape instead of in the customary folio shape. As the Committee is well aware, hitherto the greater number, I think, of Parliamentary Papers, House of Commons and House of Lords, and Command Papers have been presented in the expensive and, I think, also cumbrous folio shape, but not all. Some have been presented in the octavo shape, and from that there resulted two extravagances. In the first place, there was the actual extravagance of the large folio form, and, in the second place, the extravagance of having to reprint all the octavo papers in folio form in order that we might get regular sets for binding in the library of the House. There was a strong recommendation against the continuance of this extravagance in a Report of the Select Committee on Publications in 1906, but a certain amount of reluctance is always felt, I think, by some Members of the House against any change in a customary
form. However, the needs of economy are urgent, in small things as well as in great. Therefore, after consultation with Mr. Speaker, with the Librarian of the House, and with the officials, it has been thought right to come to the conclusion that in future all the publications shall be put before the House in the cheaper form. I believe that hon. Members, after glancing at this first instalment, will find that it is just as convenient really as the old and larger shape, and the actual economy which will result from the change will amount to the sum of £5,000 a year.
I should like to take the occasion of the presentation of this first Estimate to make a reference to the point of time in the Session at which it appears. The early date at which this Estimate is put before the Committee is a sign of that return to closer parliamentary control over expenditure which, I am confident, the whole Committee desires to see. In the old and spacious days of war finance and of Paulo-post-War finance, owing to the circumstance that there was a Civil Contingencies Fund with a very large capital, there was a margin of ease, if I may so express it, at the disposal of the Treasury, which made it possible to carry on, putting off the Supplementary Estimates till a comparatively late date. It will be within the memory of the Committee that last year, by a self-denying ordinance, that capital in the Civil Contingencies Fund was reduced to the old and normal peacetime dimensions. The result of that self-denying ordinance is to deprive us of the margin of time which we had and to make it necessary for us to come to the Committee for the Vote on the Supplementary Estimates at a very early time. As I think has been said by the Leader of the House in another Debate to-day, it is necessary for us to get authority for these Supplementary Estimates before the end of February and to confirm that authority with a Consolidated Fund Bill. Were we not to do so, owing to the fact that we no longer have the large Civil Contingencies Fund to operate upon, we should run short of cash.
Let me now come to the actual substance of the Supplementary Estimates which I have to present to the Committee to-night, and let me give a very brief explanation of their contents. Possibly, if any measures of controversy arise, I may have an opportunity of further explanation later on in the course of our
deliberations. The two Estimates presented now are, in the first place, Class VI, Vote 1, Superannuation and Retired Allowances, and after we have dealt with that the Committee will be asked to go on to Revenue Departments, Vote 1, Customs and Excise. As a matter of fact, both these Supplementary Estimates deal with an exactly similar subject-matter. They are both the provision of further sums to pay superannuation allowances of various sorts in respect of expenditure due to additional retirements of civil servants during the year, and all that I have to say about that Vote with which the Committee is now dealing will really be applicable to the Vote with which the Committee will next be called upon to deal. I mention that at this point because I think it may save the time of the Committee if I give the explanation which is applicable to both on this Vote, and thus avoid any necessity for repeating it on the Vote which will follow. These Supplementary Estimates are, as I have said, for expenditure necessary to meet the superannuation allowances of civil servants who retired during the year, and the necessity for them is due to there being more retirements than were allowed for in the original Estimate. If the Committee will glance at the Vote with which we are now dealing, on page 35 of the Supplementary Estimates, they will see that it comes under two headings—first of all, A, "Superannuation Allowances," for which an additional sum of £95,000 is required; and, secondly, C, "Additional Allowances and Gratuities," for which the larger sum of £360,000 is required. The difference there is this, that when a civil servant retires he obtains a pension of one-eightieth of his salary and emoluments at the time of his retirement as a general rule—one-eightieth, that is, per year of service up to a maximum of 40 years. It is for expenditure of that nature that Sub-head A provides. Sub-head C, "Additional Allowances," is the lump sum which is paid to civil servants upon retirement. Upon retirement, he receives, in addition to his pension, an actual lump sum, which is calculated at the rate of one-thirtieth of his salary and emoluments at the date of retirement in respect of each year of service.

Sir D. MACLEAN: The hon. Member uses the word "emoluments." Does that include what is known as the War bonus?

Mr. YOUNG: I will come to that presently. Now as to an explanation of what makes it necessary to have a Supplementary Estimate. These retirements with which we are dealing are normal retirements due to age, and in some cases owing to reasons of ill-health. The latter cases are comparatively few of the total. The Committee, I think, should look upon this Supplementary Estimate as in close connection with the general schemes of retrenchment and reorganisation owing to the necessity for economy. The actual form in which the Estimate is presented prevents the Committee having all under their eye at once the total effect of what is taking place. We have here only one side of the account, as it were. Of course, the Committee will understand that when you are reducing personnel you have to increase your non-effective charges, pensions and so on. That is what appears here. What does not appear here is the actual saving upon the whole cost to the nation which is the consequence of the reduction. As to that, I will say that I have tried to make an estimate for the information of the Committee as to what the actual saving attendant upon these effective and non-effective charges may be.
I ought to tell the Committee frankly also, that as regards this Vote, I have found it impossible to get any arithmetical calculation of the actual saving to set against these non-effective charges, and for many reasons, but principally for such reasons as this, that when an officer retires at the head of a Department or section, or a senior officer very often, the retrenchment which will be made on his retirement is not in his own particular post, but in some other post subordinate. Similarly, often economy which you effect on the occasion of a retirement is effected by some general reorganisation of the section or the Department in which he was working, and not by actual abolition of his own office. For that reason I found it impossible to link the savings with the actual increase in the non-effective charges. In general, it can only be said that they are there, but I fear the only time and place in which we shall see them before our eyes is in the comparison of the Estimates for next year with the Estimates for last year. In one region, however, I have been able to secure something like an adequate Estimate. Owing to the regular and concentrated nature of the organisation of
the Board of Customs, it has been possible, subject to all reserve, and explaining that it is only the best I can do to make a mathematical calculation, I should say that, as regards the Board of Customs, the saving that there will be to set against the increases in non-effective charges will be £150,000 in this financial year.
I observe that the Committee has before it here a Supplementary Estimate which should be viewed in close relation to the general retrenchment, and the reorganisation dependant upon retrenchment, which is actually in progress. In order to show how these savings are secured, I think the best I can do is to read a short passage from a Circular issued by the Treasury to the Departments dealing with the whole question of the filling up of vacancies and promotions at the time of retirements, such as we have evidence of in the Supplementary Estimate. On 25th August, 1921, the following Circular was issued from the Treasury to the Departments. After dealing with other matters, it said:
I am further to say that as an exceptional measure, and having regard to the possibility of transferring redundant staff from one Department to another. My Lords consider it necessary to prescribe that as from the date of this Circular no vacancies shall he filled and no promotions made, whether substantively or on an acting basis, in the authorised establishments of Departments, without prior reference to the Treasury, and that each such application to the Treasury shall be accompanied by an explanation of the necessity for filling the vacancies or making the promotions, as the case may be.
Thus the situation has been taken under control and the Board have effected economies provided by the retirements under the safeguards placed in the hands of the Treasury by this provision. Of course, it is the function of the Treasury to discharge these duties as the co-ordinating Department for the whole Civil Service. I would refer here to the question which has just been asked me by my right hon. Friend the Member for Peebles (Sir D. Maclean). There is no doubt that an impetus has been given to retirement by the effect of the War bonus on pensions. It will be within the knowledge of some Members of the Committee that amongst the salary and emoluments is included a War bonus to the extent of 75 per cent. The Committee may also
remember the controversy and criticisms upon the subject. It was said that no War bonus ought to be pensionable. The answer given was that a civil servant was entitled to pension upon salary and emoluments at the time of his retirement, and that as soon as the War bonus became more than a casual payment, and became, a part of the regular salary and emoluments, he was entitled to have it taken into account in having his pension fixed, and it was not in the discretion of the Treasury, as the authority responsible for the administration, to ignore it.
In the second place, if I remember rightly, the criticism advanced was that if the War bonuses be made pensionable, the pension based thereon should be made subject to review and periodic assessments. To that the answer given was as follows: In the first place that it would have been worse in the long run and worse immediately for the Exchequer. A periodical revision of pensions as affected by the cost of living was an administrative task involving an expense which would have been enormous. I do not think I go too far in saying that what might have been gained in the reduction of pensions would have been eaten up by the expenditure involved in the cost of the enormous staff necessary, and so on.

Sir D. MACLEAN: There has been a revision of the salaries of railway servants.

Mr. YOUNG: The more important consideration was not the point of view of the Government but of the servants themselves. I think nothing is more widely appreciated than that fairness, and consideration for your pensioner demands that he should know what his pension is likely to be, and that it should be a fixed sum upon which he should be able to make his plans for retirement, knowing just what his pension shall be. There should not be uncertainty about that. It amounts almost to cruelty for an aged pensioner not to know ahead what his income is likely to be when he retires. For those reasons, the expected fall in the cost of living was discounted once and for all on the basis that it would fall about 50 per cent. The pension was fixed once and for all upon the basis of 75 per cent. of the bonus at the time of the retirement of the servant. That is an answer to the questions of my right hon. Friend.
Finally, in that connection I would only like to observe that whatever view may be held by any Member of the Committee on this controversy as to the question of bonus, it is clear that, as people regarded it, it has worked for good. Let me suggest to the minds of hon. Members the position in which-this Government or any Government must find itself when it is confronted with the necessity, owing to urgent economic considerations, of great reductions in staff. It is confronted with the possibility, nay with the probability, of having to formulate special schemes of retirement, of expenditure for compensation and the abolition of offices, and it is confronted with all discontent, and a not unnatural sense of grievance in the persons who are reduced and thus deprived of the legitimate expectation of honourable careers. Over these regions of economy the effect of the War bonus reduction and the pensionability of War bonuses has been to promote voluntary retirement, and this has been most economically taken advantage of for the purposes of the reorganisations and retrenchments which I have mentioned. I have dealt with the general services of the Supplementary Estimate in as far as it is possible to anticipate what information the Committee desire on the subject, but if further information is required, or criticisms are advanced in the course of Debates, I may perhaps have the opportunity later of dealing with them.

Sir D. MACLEAN: The Committee is indebted to the hon. Gentleman for the lucid statement he has made, for the general explanation he has given to the Committee of the Supplementary Estimate, and the principles upon which he asks for the grant from the Committee to-night. First of all, I am sure I shall voice the feelings of the Committee when I say we appreciate very much the new form in which these Supplementary Estimates are presented. It is an added pleasure to know that convenience is not inconsistent with economy, for we have heard of the result in the saving of some thousands of pounds. The hon. Gentleman also indicated that the general scheme of these Supplementary Estimates was evidence of a return to pre-War days of a closer Parliamentary control than was possible during the War, which was not possible in the early days after it, but, as we think, was quite possible very soon after the Armistice.
Not by way of going into the merits of the matter at all, but by way of letting the Committee know how these Estimates work, I think it will be of interest if—without going into the policy of it—I inform hon. Members how the original grant was made. The original grant of these war bonuses was made in the unclassified services, House of Commons Estimates, 1920–21. That was for the sum of £9,500,000. This was followed at no very distant date by a Supplementary Estimate of £2,350,000 making a total of round about £12,000,000 for 1920–21. I am quite certain that a substantial part of the sum now asked for would have been saved if the House of Commons had the opportunity then of discussing the policy for which this huge sum was asked. Unfortunately, however, it was passed by what is popularly known as the guillotine, and not a single word of discussion took place upon that very important departure. The first discussion that arose upon this subject was about this time last year when another Supplementary Estimate was presented for £800,000. As some hon. Member will recollect, I have more than once drawn attention to the circumstances under which the discussion commenced. It was about half-past twelve or one o'clock in the morning, and some of us were doing our best to obtain explanations of the figures before the Committee, and as far as I was concerned I found it a very heavy burden to deal with all the duties of an Opposition when our numbers were so few. It was the first time I had heard that, as a result of a Departmental Committee sitting quite privately, the nation was committed to this very heavy sum. Now we have before us once again a further request for a sum totalling very nearly £500,000.
I am glad to gather that we may expect a, diminution of this amount in the future. I hope that will be so, and that this expenditure will be on a descending rather than an ascending scale, in so far as grants will be asked for coming under the purposes of this Vote. I wish to say at once that when the State has entered into a contract with its servants it must stand by it whatever the consequences may be. At any rate, it must achieve the same standard of fairness and justice as the best employer would be expected to maintain. This scheme is a statutory one, and the whole of this
large sum with which I have been dealing comes within that, single word to which I called attention at the early part of the statement to which we have just listened. It is said that these officials are entitled to a lump sum, and the emoluments of their office, and that is where it comes within the statute.
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Let me come at once to the main points of my criticism, and that is the War bonus being taken, as has been explained with perfect candour and fairness, as part of the retiring pension of the civil servant. Should that have been accepted in the way in which it has been? When a, civil servant retires the emolument is in addition to his regular salary, and, as I suggest, it is a permanent part of the sum to which he was entitled from the State in connection with his services. This was not a temporary thing for a year or more, but it was something which a civil servant would normally expect to carry with him to the end of his service. But does that principle apply to a. war bonus? I think not. What is the essence of the war bonus which the hon. Gentleman has so frankly discussed? Surely it is a grant made either by a private employer or by the State to the person employed in order to enable him or her to meet the special stress of temporary circumstances. The anticipation of all of us was that the very heavy cost of living during the War and immediately after the War would show a steady decline until we arrived at something like a pre-War basis of existence. I do not think the time is very far distant when the. general cost of living will not exceed much more than 20 or 25 per cent. of what it was in 1914. It must come down. The general conditions of the employment of labour make it almost certain that it will come down before very long. Is it a proper use of the statute to bring war bonus under the term emolument? The right thing to do is what is being done in other departments of social life, namely, that these war increases should be subject to periodic review. Servants of the State should bear along with others their share of the impact of the arduous conditions under which we are all compelled to live. What happened in the case of railway employés? They had very large additions to their wages, and they were fully justified, and I am
certain with regard to many civil servants they were underpaid and their regular salaries ought to have been increased. But it was accepted as part of the conditions under which these additions were made to railway servants and other employés on a large scale that if and when the conditions of sale and of the purchase of commodities so developed that there should be a review and they should accept a lower wage. That has been done already to the extent of millions. Railway companies are paying millions less per annum to-day than they were some months ago.
What is the explanation of the Treasury? They say that such a periodic review would be so costly as to really make it not worth while. I am bound to say I am far from agreeing with that argument, and surely what can be done when you are dealing with men by hundreds of thousands and of different grades, as in the case of railway labour, can be done with equal ease in dealing with, comparatively speaking, the limited number and a less number of grades of the civil servants affected by this Vote. For these reasons I do not think the argument which the hon. Gentleman put before the Committee carried the weight which some of his arguments usually do. There are one or two question which I should like to ask, and I think the hon. Gentleman will agree with me that the Committee is entitled to the information. If the hon. Gentleman cannot answer now he may be able to do so on Report. I want to know how many of these civil servants have taken the opportunity—I do not deny their right, for they are entitled to do it—to retire voluntarily not by reason of ill-health or any condition of that kind, but through just having come within the time at which they could retire.
I want to know how many have seized an opportunity to retire taking their retiring allowance on the pre-War standard plus the 75 per cent. of the emolument popularly known as the war bonus? How many have retired on their retrenchment compulsorily and not wishing to retire? In what Departments have these retirements voluntarily and involuntarily taken place? I would like to know how many there are in each Department, and will the hon. Gentleman also inform us—I do not want to press for an elaborate return which is difficult to get out involving a
multitude of figures—who have retired on a salary, with bonus, say of over £500 a year. I think the Committee will see how extraordinarily favourably this scheme acts in the case of the civil servant. I repeat that I do not say he is not legally entitled, under the terms of his contract, to take advantage of it. But take the case of a civil servant with a salary of £800 a year. I think I am not unfair when I say that, with the war bonus as it stood 9 months ago, he would be then receiving, in addition to his other emoluments which I do not take into calculation, a sum of about £1,376. He would get on his pre-War arrangement under the Statute about £400 a year as a retiring allowance. In addition to that, he would get 75 per cent. of the war bonus of £570. I calculate—I may be wrong—he would be actually receiving as pension—and a fixed pension—slightly more than the total of his pre-War salary. I do not think that is really quite bearing a fair share of the burdens which we all have to bear. This is the main criticism that I make. It is just because this House did not have an opportunity to discuss the original Estimates and its policy when a grant amounting to many millions was made at the end of the Session that a state of affairs was created which, while quite legitimate so far as the civil servant is concerned, is regarded by the general body of citizens as unduly favourable to the civil servant on his retirement. If we had had at the outset the chance which we now have of criticising it, I am certain the civil servant would not have complained and the public would not have felt that sense of injustice which has been widely aroused throughout the country.

The CHAIRMAN: The right hon. Gentleman is now dealing with the original Estimate on which this sum accrues. It is not in order to do so on a Supplementary Estimate.

Sir D. MACLEAN: I was dealing not with the salary but with the question of the War bonus.

The CHAIRMAN: The right hon. Gentleman was dealing with both.

Sir D. MACLEAN: I am sorry if I transgressed the limits. The statement with which the Financial Secretary opened the Debate was a general one, and when that is the case it is usually open to
Members of the Committee, within limits, to follow him. I am very much obliged to the hon. Gentleman for doing as he did. I was anxious to have the whole thing debated so that we might know exactly where we stand. As this operates under Statute and the House of Commons has already granted this sum, I do not feel justified in moving a reduction to-night. These ladies and gentlemen who have taken advantage of the position were fully entitled to do so, and I leave the subject with the criticism which I have addressed to the Committee, thanking hon. Members at the same time for their indulgence in listening to me so patiently while endeavouring to explain a very complicated question.

Sir J. D. REES: I am sorry to be a discontented member of the Committee, but I am not quite satisfied with the form of these Estimates. I am sure my hon. Friend will point out later on that it is owing to my lack of intelligence that I cannot follow them, but I do not feel that that is a sufficient answer, because Members of the House ought to have these Estimates presented in so cut and dried a form as to be intelligible even to those wanting in intelligence. The Notice of Motion relating to the Order of the Day reads:
Civil Service and Revenue Departmental Supplementary Estimate, 1921–22, Class 6, Vote 1; Revenue Department, Vote 1; Class 2, Votes 13 and 10; Class 3, Vote 22; Class 6, Votes 10 and 10a; and Class 2, Vote 49.
Looking at the Estimate, Class 2, I find no Vote 13 and 10, while in Class 3, Vote 22, I find only Q and R. Class 6 is entirely wanting. All this may be capable of immediate explanation, but it is not clear, it is not transparent. Then I turn to the Index, and I find there nothing to help me. I have always found these Estimates presented in such a form that they take a great deal of hunting about, and involve the asking of many questions before one can find out where one is. There seems to be no object in all this. There was an object in having the Bible printed in Latin, because the ecclesiastical authorities did not want anyone to understand it. The same applies to the Koran and other holy books, but what is the object of having these Estimates in this form instead of in a transparently simple form suitable to the least intelligent. Member? So much for
the form. Let me now ask my hon. Friend a question as regards the substance. At the commencement of the first page with which we are dealing to-day we have, "Salaries of Medical Referees."

The CHAIRMAN: That is not the Vote that we are on now, although discussion of the new form of the Estimates would be in order on any Vote. I beg the hon. Baronet's pardon—I see that the salaries of medical referees are mentioned, after all.

Sir J. D. REES: The Estimate seems to be more difficult to understand even than I thought. I find the medical referees referred to in the first sentence, and I want to ask my hon. Friend whether they include the 30 doctors at £1,000 a year—one or two of them rising to £1,200—appointed upon his death-bed by the expiring late President of the Local Government Board. I rather think they are included.

Major MACKENZIE WOOD: On a point of Order. Is there anything in this Supplementary Vote for medical referees?

The CHAIRMAN: I thought at first that there was not, but I find that my vigilance was not sufficient to discover the fact that there is

Sir J. D. REES: It seems as if the unintelligent Member is able to hold his own against the extremely intelligent—indeed, superintelligent—interrupter. If I am right in supposing that the 30 medical officers, whose appointment I myself have most bitterly resented, are really included in this Estimate, there is nothing to show it. They may, however, be there, for even 30 medical officers at £1,000 a year can hide themselves with complete success in a Supplementary Estimate of £6,724,000. Are they there? If so, will the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury kindly tell me what I have long wanted to know, namely, what duties these gentlemen perform? Their public duties, I protest, are really negligible. I understand that they perform certain duties in connection with the National Insurance Act.

The CHAIRMAN: The hon. Baronet is certainly out of order now, because he is discussing the original policy of having medical referees at all, and not the reason for an extra amount in the Supplementary Estimate.

Sir J. D. REES: I see that, and I apologise. Will the Secretary to the Treasury kindly tell me why more money is required for these gentlemen, to whom I regret very much that any money is paid at all? I hope that that is not out of order. Will the hon. Gentleman kindly explain what is the excess?

Mr. YOUNG: I can give a brief and simple answer to that question. No more money is required for the medical referees. If the hon. Baronet will look at the original Estimate, he will find that the medical referees are Sub-head G, and nothing is taken in this Supplementary Estimate for Sub-head G.

Sir J. D. REES: Then, while I am wrong as regards the medical referees, my hon. Friend is wrong as regards the form in which he presents this Estimate, because, if you pick up an Estimate and see in large print the words "Supplementary Estimate," and see at the end of the sentence, "Salaries of Medical Referees," it is extremely natural that a Member of this House should think that the medical referees come under consideration on this occasion, and I have really been furnished, quite by accident, with another proof of the justice of the accusation which I launched against my hon. Friend. I am sure he takes it in the same good-tempered spirit in which I launched it against him. As regards retirements, for which there is an excess of £360,000, I must say, as an old Government servant and an old public servant, that I accept altogether the reasoning of my right hon. Friend the Member for Peebles (Sir D. Maclean). It seems to me that it is not right that superannuation allowance should be calculated upon an accidental, temporary and special allowance. It seems to me that it is no more fair to calculate retiring allowances upon the war bonus than it would be to add in travelling allowance, supposing that these gentlemen draw it, as some of them probably do, as part of their emoluments, in order to get the total upon which the pension may be struck. I never served in the English Civil Service, but the rules in this behalf are very much the same all the world over, and are copied in various foreign services from the rules obtaining at home, which are supposed to be the very height of wisdom. In this instance I am sorry to say that I think
the taxpayer suffers unjustly, and that it is a case of Quicquid delirant reges. Whatever the King and the Parliament say, the taxpayer's part is to smile and pay. It would have been quite easy for the Treasury to come to the House of Commons and say, "We are in rather a fix over this." On their right and on their left are civil servants, who are, no doubt, the most admirable men, but they have great influence with those whom they supply with material for their work and all that they do in their offices, and, therefore, it would have been quite easy to have come to the House before committing the House and the taxpayer to the striking of the superannuation allowances upon a figure which included a temporary, accidental, and special allowance like the War bonus. I do feel that very much, and though, like my right hon. Friend the Member for Peebles, I have no intention of moving a reduction, and, indeed, realise as fully as anyone can the great difficulties under which any Government labour when they are surrounded on every side by those who are wanting to do that which they naturally would hesitate to do for them, still, at a time like this, I believe that of all men in the world the most deserving of sympathy and encouragement is not the halt, the sick, the lame, and the blind, not the person out of work even, but nobody so much as the ordinary man who gets up and comes out of the stable and does his work every day, and who has got the whole country on his back under one pretext or another.

Major M. WOOD: I hope nobody will consider that we who object to this Vote do not desire the civil servant to get full value for his work and to get his proper pension, but we are entitled to point out to the House that, as a result of what the Government has done, civil servants are going to be given for all time a pension which is calculated, not upon the salary that they have been earning while they have been working, but on a salary which was fixed at a temporary high figure on account of the high cost of living, and are therefore going to get an advantage from the War, and expect those who remain at work to pay for it. That is the result of what the Government has done, and if the Government come forward now and say that this is a statutory right which, through accident or for any other
reason, the civil servants are entitled to have and cannot be prevented from having, then I suppose the civil servants must get it; but we are entitled to condemn the Government for the mistake they have made, because they have put a burden upon the taxpayer which he should not have to bear, and which he would not have had to bear had they done their duty. The hon. Gentleman has been asked to give some figures about retirement. I think if he will look into the figures he will find that, during August in particular, there was a perfect stampede of civil servants to retire, and that was simply because, on 31st August, there was a drop in the bonus, and all civil servants knew that, if they were able to retire in August, they would get a bigger pension than if they remained another month. That in itself shows up how bad the system was. I should very much like the hon. and gallant. Gentleman to give us some figures to show in particular how many civil servants and what type of civil servants retired during August. I feel quite certain they would be very illuminating, and would prove up to the hilt the case we are trying to make against this Supplementary Estimate. The hon. and gallant Gentleman stated that in any case, apart from what I have said, it would have been too costly to revise periodically the bonus which the civil servants were to get when they retired. If that is so, is it too costly to revise, as I am sure is being done, the salaries of the civil servants who remain? I understand bonus is still payable to civil servants, and that that bonus is liable to be revised and reviewed from time to time. I should have thought that the same work expended on the salaries of those civil servants that remain would have been quite sufficient, and all that was necessary to determine the amount of bonus to be paid to those who have already gone. So far as I can see there is nothing at all in that particular defence which the hon. and gallant Gentleman advanced.
The next thing that the hon. and gallant Gentleman said was that it would he most unfair on these poor old pensioned civil servants if they were to leave the Civil Service without knowing exactly how much they were going to have. If that is a grievance and a hardship for pensioned civil servants, surely it is
equally a grievance and a hardship for civil servants who are not pensioned. So far as my information goes, half the people of this country at present are being paid salaries which are liable to review at any time, and no one can say that at the same time next year he will have the salary he has to-day. The great majority of people are living under the same uncertainty to which the hon. and gallant Gentleman thinks it would be an undue hardship to submit retired civil servants. There is nothing in that argument at all. I cannot see why the Government should have committed themselves to this great expenditure. Anyone who looked into the question would have been bound to see that this would be the result. I should like to draw the attention of the Committee to what the Chancellor of the Exchequer said a few months ago, when he came down to the House and with a great flourish of trumpets told us he was going to make a cut in the Civil Service bonus.

The CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member is not in Order in discussing the merits of the Civil Service bonus. He is only in Order in asking for an explanation of how these particular increases arise.

Major WOOD: I quite understand that I cannot discuss the bonus, and I do not propose to do so. I want, however, to draw attention to the fact that when the cut was made it was supposed to be a great saving, and that these Supplementary Estimates show that the promise which the Chancellor of the Exchequer held out has not been fulfilled. He told us a few months ago when that cut was made in the Civil Service bonus that it was going to result in a saving of something like £500,000. It has not been so, and this Estimate shows it, because, although that cut was going to be made, immediately it was announced the civil servants in great numbers came forward and retired voluntarily. They got the increased pension as a result, because the pension was calculated on a higher bonus. They have been able entirely to nullify the saving which the Chancellor of the Exchequer held out to us. Therefore that £500,000 which sounded so well at the time, is nowhere. I think we are entitled to draw the attention of the Committee and the country to what has been done here, because the
Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Treasury have been very bad stewards of the public purse.

Sir F. BANBURY: I am sorry the hon. Baronet the Member for East Nottingham (Sir J. D. Rees), has left the Committee. I am glad that he is a recruit to the ranks of those of us who are desirous of stopping the extra expenditure which has been going on so long, but he does not seem quite to understand the proper way to go about that task. I was going to point out to him, if he had only remained—perhaps, if the Committee will allow me to say so—it may be of some advantage to other hon. Members who are desirous of criticising the expenditure of the Government, if I point out—that as a matter of fact the form in which the Supplementary Estimates are presented this evening is really very simple. The hon. Baronet was misled by reading the paragraph which appears at the top of page 25. What he ought to have done was to have gone to the Vote Office and asked for the Civil Service Estimate for the year 1921–22. He then would have found all the particulars of the Civil Service Estimates for the year we are discussing, and would have been able to see whether the additional sum required was in respect of certain services or of other services. Though it, entails the necessity of getting a large book, which I see an hon. Friend below me has already obtained, it is perfectly easy to find out what we are discussing if you only know how to do it.
I was unfortunately unable to be here to hear the statement from the Secretary to the Treasury, but I understand that all we are discussing at the present moment is whether or not we should approve of an additional sum amounting to £95,000 being added to the superannuation allowances under Sub-head A and £360,000 for additional allowances and gratuities to established officers. I am opposed to these sums, because I do not think we can afford them. I would point out to those hon. Members who say that a contract has been entered into, that the Government have no power to enter into a contract to spend money until that expenditure has been authorised by this House or by a Committee of this House. That is the object of the Estimates. If the Government were able to come down and say: "You have got to pass these
Estimates because we have agreed to spend the money," we might just as well go home as sit here and discuss them. The matter is in our hands. We can say: "We will not pass these Estimates," and the Government then, if they had made a contract, would have to find the money out of their own pockets, which would not be a bad thing. That would deter them from this kind of action in the future.
I apologise to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury if I ask him questions which he has already answered, because, like my hon. Friend the Member for East Nottingham, I rushed back from dinner in order to be here and to say a few words upon these matters. I understand that the £95,000 under Subhead A, Superannuation Allowances, is required to make up the sum necessary to pay additional superannuation allowances based upon the bonus. The bonus is a temporary thing. I have had some experience of superannuation allowances. I was chairman of the Superannuation Committee of many of the great railway companies of this country. We have never recognised bonus as entitling anyone to an additional superannuation. "Bonus" is a Latin word which means "good." It does not mean that it is anything hut an exceptional grant for an exceptional circumstance. In this Supplementary Estimate, however, we are going to give for all time an increased bonus to certain people because the cost of living two years ago had increased. That, so far as I can see, subject to any contradiction by the hon. and gallant Gentleman, is the fact. I object to that. There are a very large number of people who have never had any advantage whatever from anything; neither from any increase in their investments, nor from earnings, if they were in business, or whatever they were doing, but they have had to bear the whole cost of taxation. Why should the Civil Service be put in an exceptional position? Why should they not bear a share of the burden, as everyone else has to bear it, with the exception of members of the trade unions?

Mr. N. MACLEAN: The lawyers' trade union.

Sir F. BANBURY: Lawyers? Oh, yes, certainly. I believe they are the worst trade union that exists.

Mr. LAWSON: It is the railway directors' trade union that you mean.

Sir F. BANBURY: I have never met one. If there were one I should possibly change my opinion. It is really quite out of order for me to reply to hon. Members, but so far as I know not a single railway director—

The CHAIRMAN: That is getting a long way from the Supplementary Estimate.

Sir F. BANBURY: I was seduced from my ordinary observance of the rules of debate by hon. Members opposite. This Supplementary Estimate is for a sum of £360,000, and it is for
Additional Allowances and Gratuities to Established Officers.
Again I apologise if it has already been explained. I see no reason for giving these additional allowances and gratuities. What has become of the Geddes Report? There is nothing in the Geddes Report which would suggest that the House of Commons should vote—

The CHAIRMAN: The right hon. Baronet knows that the established rule of debate is that the policy of the original Estimate cannot be questioned. It is open to him to ask for an explanation of, or to comment on miscalculations whereby the original Estimate was exceeded, but it is not open to any hon. Member to question the original policy.

Sir F. BANBURY: I was not questioning the original policy, and I say humbly that it is open to me, or to any other hon. Member, to object to voting this £360,000, and we have a right to give our opinion and our reasons for objection. I referred to the Geddes Report, because when the original Estimate was before the House there was neither a Geddes Committee nor a Geddes Report, nor was there any idea that such an inquiry was to be instituted. Therefore I say that the whole situation has changed, and that we should not vote this £360,000, because the Government are pledged through the Geddes Committee to economy and a reduction of expenditure, and the first thing in which we can help the Government, as I am desirous of helping them, is by refusing to vote this £360,000.
I am sorry that the right hon. Member for Peebles (Sir D. Maclean) has left
the Committee. He was always a very vigilant watchdog ever the expenditure of the country, and I was rather hoping that he would have said, not that he would move a reduction of the Vote, but that he would vote against the whole thing. It is no use getting up and making speeches if you do not mean to go through with the matter. We have done a great deal too much of that; we have criticised the Government, and after we have done that we have gone away. I think we ought to do something more. When the Government ask for additional money we ought to say, "We will not give it to you, however good the object." I do not want to argue the merits of the case. It may be quite right to give this £360,000, if we had it, but we have not got it, and if we go on like this we shall become bankrupt. I am sorry there are so few Members in the House, but I hope that even if they do not vote against this £360,000 there will be such an expression of opinion that the Government will abandon their Supplementary Estimates where they entail increased expenditure.

Mr. E. HARMSWORTH: I beg to move to reduce the Vote by £100,000.
I endorse what has been said by the right hon. Baronet about the Estimates now before the Committee. It appears that we have very little control in the matter. These allowances and gratuities seem, like the war bonus, to have been decided upon by the Departments themselves. The Departments have, more or less, decided amongst themselves that the war bonus shall be calculated in the pensions. It would be a most excellent thing if the country could afford it. Many of these things are excellent; but in present circumstances, after we have had the financial position put so clearly before us by the Geddes Committee and after we have had the Government on every possible occasion telling us that they are doing all they can to economise, though I must admit that we have seen very little of it in reality, a matter such as this should not have been brought before the House before any Parliamentary decision was taken on it. It is very little use our coming down here to discuss in the dinner hour matters that have already been decided and of which we have practically no control.
That is my first criticism. My second criticism is, quite frankly, that I think it is wrong that war bonus should be calculated for pension. It is quite obvious to everyone that the war bonus was purely a temporary thing to combat the cost of living, so that civil servants who, owing to the rise—

The CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member is now putting an argument which would very likely be relevant on the original Vote. The only question now before us is whether this additional commitment shall be honoured. He can, of course, say that the amount is so great that it should not be honoured, and he can comment on miscalculations in the original Estimate, but he is not entitled to discuss the policy of the original Estimate.

Mr. HARMSWORTH: I intended to point out only that the War bonus was a temporary matter and should not be calculated in the superannuation. The sums before us, totalling £455,000, are extremely large at a time when the revenue of the country is decreasing week by week. Were no more than this sum concerned, and were we then finished with the matter, there would be very little more to be said. But apparently in the future, probably next year, we shall be called upon to pass another Supplementary Estimate for a similar sum of money to be devoted to the same purpose, for a great many civil servants will retire during the course of this year. I simply wish on this matter, on which the range of discussion is very limited, to make my protest against this Vote coming before the Committee, and I certainly wish the right hon. Member for Peebles (Sir D. Maclean) had moved an Amendment, because I think it is a most important matter that, on a question of this kind, where we have sums of money which we do not agree, a division should be taken. It is our only control. We have no other control over a Minister at all except what we can do view of an Amendment. I move to reduce the Vote as a protest. against this large sum of money coming before the Committee at a time when the country cannot afford it, and when the taxpayer is very hardly pressed. As far as I can see there is no prospect whatever of taxation becoming lighter, and at such a time
as this the Government should have only one thing in view, namely, economising in every possible way.

Sir G. COLLINS: My right hon. Friend the Member for Peebles (Sir D. Maclean) is not in his place at the moment, but as he has been in the House for several hours I am sure the Committee will understand the reason. If I understand it correctly, the reason we have not moved a reduction is a simple one, that this is a statutory obligation, that pensions have already been granted, and so far as this year is concerned it would be a supreme breach of faith, the State having undertaken that definite obligation towards certain individuals, in the closing days of the financial year for this House to refuse to grant the necessary supplies. But I am sure the Committee will realise that my right hon. Friend is strongly opposed to the policy and to the Supplementary Estimate. It is interesting to observe that the Treasury when submitting the original Estimate provided only £275,000 as the additional amount, and this evening we are asked for £635,000. They must have seriously miscalculated their policy in this matter. They have definitely bought out of the Service, through the taxpayers' money, a large number of individuals who in the early days of the present financial year the Treasury thought would be serving the State. I am not in any sense of the word blaming a single civil servant for being so wise as to seize a generous offer made by an unwise and extravagant Government with the hard-earned money of the taxpayer. The responsibility rests with those who are directly responsible for incurring this yearly and permanent charge on the State It may well be that in the coming year, instead of the revised Estimate of £635,000, if precedent is any guide in this matter and experience teaches the value of these generous pensions, the State will be forced to find nearly £2,000,000 for the purpose of superannuation and retired allowances. The Estimate at the beginning of the year was £1,000,000. It has been increased by 40 per cent. It is rather remarkable that in the first day set apart to discuss the expenditure of public money, which involves a yearly and permanent charge on the State, when the Government is pressed from this and other quarters to modify what I think all will
agree are extravagant pensions, they flatly refuse to listen to the voice of a single Member in the House of Commons. The first fruits of practical economy is the statement made by the Government this evening that they refuse to modify these generous pensions paid to civil servants. I think the public outside will take note that the Government may be anxious to preach economy, but when it comes not only to practising it, but to passing the necessary legislation to effect that economy, they refuse to do it.
If I understand it aright, the pension at present being granted is based on the war bonus. Compare the position of these fortunate individuals with retired civil servants and Army and Navy officers who retired from the service of the State before 1914. They retired on the old pension based on the old rate. They have not received since the outbreak of the War any increase of their pension, but they hear and they know of civil servants drawing these increased pensions based on the war bonus. Further, how difficult the attitude of the Government makes it for local authorities. How difficult is the position of every individual in every education committee, county council and all the numerous public bodies throughout the country to be faced, as they are being faced, with increased demands or to maintain the rate of pension paid to their employés. Countless thousands throughout the country will point to the attitude of the Government and will say that where a war bonus was granted, pensions should be paid on that rate, and what civil servants have secured they will endeavour to secure, and rightly so, in their own particular spheres of action. Economies cannot be effective throughout the country unless the Government themselves give a lead in this matter. This evening the Committee is being asked to vote this sum of money, placing an increased burden on the shoulders of the taxpayer year by year, which it is in the power of the Government during the coming months to modify. That is our charge against the Government. I hope the Financial Secretary and other members of the Government will take note of the exceeding interest shown in the Geddes Report, and wisely, because that Report for the first time places the details of expenditure in a way which can be clearly grasped by every individual in the country.
When we compare page by page, as in that Report, statements showing how money has been spent, the ordinary citizen is able to grasp where the money is being wasted. He is able to see where he is getting value for his money in some Departments. Therefore my plea to the Financial Secretary is that the Government should remodel the whole form of their Estimates, and present them to the House and the country in such a manner and in such a form that we shall be able to grasp them by reading them. How many established officers are receiving their superannuation allowance under this Estimate? The form of the Estimate gives no information on that point. I am not blaming the Financial Secretary, because he is dealing with a system which has been handed down to us from bye-gone days; but we do appeal to the Government, in view of the exceeding and deep interest in the subject of public expenditure, to accept the recommendations of the Select Committee on National Expenditure made several years ago, and that every Department of the State will remodel their forms of Estimates and present them in such form that the House of Commons and the country will be able to grasp them.
I am exceedingly sorry that we have found it unwise or impracticable to remove a reduction of the Estimates, but I do call the attention of the Committee to the fact that, on the first day set apart for the discussion of public expenditure, the Government turns once again a deaf ear to the cry which has gone up to them this evening from all quarters of the House to secure economy in the public service.

Mr. G. LOCKER - LAMPSON: I sat here all day and had to go to dinner. Therefore, if the question I am about to ask has been answered in my absence, I will sit down. Everybody knows that these additional allowances very much affect the superannuation pay. I do not know when these additional allowances were decided upon?

Mr. YOUNG: I did give some explanation in opening the Estimates. The additional allowance referred to is the lump sum which the officer receives on retirement under the Statute, of one-thirtieth of his pay for every year's service.

Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: The pay has been raised, and there is a certain
amount of bonus on the top of it. Did the Government, when it agreed to this increase of pay, call in actuarial advice, because that is enormously important? If you do not call in actuarial advice, you find very often an amazing result in superannuation pay on the top of ordinary pay. In the First Interim Report of the Geddes Committee, speaking about teachers' pensions, they point out that the full cost to the taxpayer of the burden of teachers' pensions was clearly not appreciated when the arrangement was made, and that, in fact, the Government Actuary was not consulted. The Government have the services of Sir Alfred Watson, one of the ablest actuaries in the world, and he was not even consulted when that was decided upon. I find in the Second Interim Report of the Geddes Committee that when the present Government dealt with the Police Pensions Bill, 1921, there, again, they never called in the Government Actuary. The Geddes Committee say:
We consider that it would have been advantageous, in view of the great addition of pay made by the general adoption of the Desborough scale with its immediate effect upon the superannuation liability, if the scheme had been actuarially tested. … As in the case of Teachers' Superannuation, we think the question should receive early investigation.
10.0 P.M.
Did the Government take actuarial advice on this question? If not, we are being asked for a sum for superannuation pay which is probably vastly in excess of what would have been decided upon had actuarial advice been taken. The Government have Sir Alfred Watson at their disposal, a Government servant, the greatest actuary, or one of the greatest actuaries who has ever lived in this country, as I know from having been in constant contact with him during the Debates on the Insurance Bill. If they have not called in his advice it is a gross piece of negligence. I should like to know definitely whether or not they called in Sir Alfred Watson to advise them actuarially as to the result of this increased pay on superannuation.

Sir COURTENAY WARNER: Could the Financial Secretary tell us when the Statute which has been referred to which gave one-thirtieth of the pay as pension was passed?

Mr. YOUNG: I am not quite sure whether it was the Superannuation Act of 1909.

Sir C. WARNER: There is a note at the bottom of the page which says:
Expenditure due to additional retirement.
Does that refer to both items, or only to one of the two items?

Mr. YOUNG: It refers to both items. "A" is the recurring pension, and "C" is the lump sum.

Sir C. WARNER: It is some satisfaction to see that most of the money is the lump sum, because that will not recur. One of the points that has been raised is not so important as it looks, because the bonus is being reduced every year. At the same time it is important that the House should take note of, and urge upon the Government the necessity of altering, this scale so as not to include bonus. We understand that so far as the money has been voted according to Statute we cannot go back on it, but we must draw attention to the fact that the Government have given a superannuation allowance based not only on the increased pay which this House voted, but also on bonus which this House did not know about when it voted the increased pay. The House was not informed about the bonus when it voted the increased pay.
I do not quite see my hon. Friend's argument that we must not move a reduction on this Vote. It is true that we cannot stop this money being paid, and this Committee does not wish to do so, but how is the Committee to express an opinion which it holds except by voting against what it considers is improper expenditure? Does the Committee think this is an improper payment? The Government has more or less jockeyed us ail through on this subject, and we are asked to vote upon a Supplementary Estimate of which we never approved. It is true that the original Estimate was passed and the principle was agreed to so far as that goes; but this shows that the principle was bad, because the increased expenditure is due to additional retirements. The increased number of retirements comes from a very natural feeling on the part of civil servants that if they retire now they will get a better pension than if they wait for two or three years. It is obvious that any man who
knew that he would get a better pension by retiring now than by serving two or three years more would chose to retire when he would get the larger pension. The retirements have been more numerous and the cost of this comes on the taxpayer.
This is a matter of which the Committee ought to take notice and I, for one, although I do not in the least propose to stop these men getting these pensions, because it can be set right in another way, will vote for the reduction as a protest against what is a careless system. We have on the Paper a very sketchy definition of what has taken place. For whom are these pensions and grants? Are these people clerks and others retiring on a pension of, say, £100 a year, or men retiring on a pension of £1,000 a year? It makes a great difference. We should like to know what were the salaries of the men who have taken the lump sum, to what sort of men are we voting this money; to very poor men or men comparatively well off, who could well afford a little reduction in their pension? There is nothing about that on the Paper. We want to know something about these things. From beginning to end this whole business has been rather hidden from us. When the bonus was given originally we were not told before the bonus was granted. The whole question requires to be gone into carefully, and unless the Government tell us that they are going to alter the present system and strike the bonus out of the pensions the Committee ought to take a vote on the matter.

Mr. MOSLEY: I notice that an important point has been introduced into the discussion by my hon. Friend the Member for Wood Green (Mr. G. Locker-Lampson); but before I address myself to that and other subjects, I would like to join in the chorus of congratulation to the Financial Secretary for the new form of these Estimates. When I saw that these Estimates were in a new and more convenient form, and when I heard that a saving of £5,000 had been effected through this novelty, I at once suspected that the business genius, which lurks within the Geddes Committee alone, was responsible, and therefore my gratitude to the hon. Gentleman is all the warmer when I hear that alone and unaided the Treasury have actually effected an economy of £5,000.Apparently, the
form of these Estimates was not submitted to the test of the business method which, according to the Chancellor, exists alone within this committee of business men and, ex hypothesi, must be entirely lacking in the Treasury. Therefore, I felicitate with all my heart the hon. Gentleman on this new economy which he has effected.
The hon. Gentleman also found a subject of congratulation in the fact that these Estimates had been introduced at an earlier stage than had been customary in previous Sessions, and for a moment, again, we were almost moved to feel that a change of heart had taken place in the Government, and that they were reasserting Treasury control, and actually taking us into their confidence in matters of finance at this early stage. But it was disappointing when the hon. Gentleman went on to inform us that the reason of the earlier introduction of the Supplementary Estimates was the depletion of the Civil Contingencies Fund which, in former years, had enabled the introduction of these Estimates to be postponed to a later stage, so that, after all, even this reform was a matter of necessity rather than of choice. The hon. Gentleman explained, with his customary lucidity and candour, the reason of the Supplementary Estimates, but there are one or two points still outstanding as to which I am not quite clear. He told us that some of these retirements were not entirely unexpected, and that they are due to normal conditions, the attainment of the age limit, and such like events. If that is so, if some of these retirements are to be ascribed to such causes, why were they not calculated and included in the original Estimates? If they are due to normal conditions, surely they ought to have been included in the original Estimates submitted to us; so that, at all events, is a matter of pure miscalculation.
The hon. Gentleman told us that some of the retirements were part of the general economy scheme which is now being introduced; but unfortunately when we are being asked for this additional money, in order to effect an economy, we are not in possession of the saving that is effected as a set-off against this expenditure. The hon. Gentleman explained that it was impossible for him, prior to the introduction of the Estimates, to afford us that
information. That is a rather curious position in which to find the House of Commons. We are asked to vote a substantial additional sum—about £450,000—to effect what we are told is an economy; while at the same time we are informed by the hon. Gentleman that he cannot give us the round figures or even the vaguest idea of what the economy will amount to. I have not the hon. Gentleman's advantage either in inside knowledge of Departmental matters or in access to the documents which are at his disposal, but I do feel that with a slight exertion on the part of his very able staff, he might possibly have been able to afford us some idea of the scheme which he has under discussion and of the saving which it is hoped will be effected by that scheme.
The specific question raised in this Supplementary Estimate is that of taking war bonus into consideration in the granting of pensions. I find myself in entire agreement with the hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury) when he points out, with complete accuracy, that this scheme is in effect giving a permanent advantage as the result of a period of temporary conditions. The Government argue that because in the last year or so the cost of living has been high, and because, in order to meet the increased cost of living, a bonus was given to the civil servants for the duration of that period, that therefore these men are to benefit for the rest of their lives by a permanent increase in their pensions which, as the right hon. Member for Peebles (Sir D. Maclean) pointed out, will in many cases raise those pensions to a higher level than their total pre-War salaries. That is a most extraordinary proposal to introduce in this House. It has always been remarkable to me, that it can be seriously argued that the Civil Service alone of any section of the community should be immune from the economic stringency which to-day affects every class and every section in this country. That in itself is a remarkable contention which has long been sustained by this Government. But when they come down here and say that because they are giving the Civil Service this special consideration to meet special temporary conditions, that therefore when those conditions have changed and when the cost of living has fallen, these men are in perpetuity to have their pensions
raised proportionately to the bonus, then I submit that is an argument which cannot be sustained on any ground of logic or of justice. It certainly has not been sustained by the hon. Gentleman this evening. He has pointed out that this House is in some respects committed to that policy, but he did not attempt in any way to justify the extraordinary proposal which he is now recommending to the House, in a far more aggravated eventuality than was ever contemplated when we originally passed this scheme. It was passed, as has been pointed out by the right hon. Member for Peebles, in one of those blind votes to which the House has occasionally been invited to accord its assent, and was only discussed for the first time on the Supplementary Estimates last year. It is now becoming apparent as yearly these Supplementary Estimates come up, exactly the appalling extent of the burden to which the Government has committed the country, a burden which in future years is likely to aggregate to a very large sum indeed.
I hope, in conclusion, that the hon. Gentleman, when he comes to reply, will be able to enlighten us on these various points and will afford us some justification of the scheme which he has presented to the Committee, and will tell us why it was impossible to foresee in the original Estimates that some of these people who are retiring under normal conditions would retire during the course of the present year and therefore might have been included in the original Estimate, and, further, I trust that he will be able to give us some idea of the ultimate sum which will devolve upon the Exchequer as a result of this plan, a part of which is revealed in these Estimates.

Mr. A. SHAW: I want to ask the Financial Secretary to the Treasury a question. It may be that in some way the public are saddled with this burden owing to a misunderstanding, but I must say I think it is a very ridiculous misunderstanding. Here we have a situation which will probably last but a very few years, on the authority of perhaps the greatest expert in the country, whom I had the honour of consulting a few days ago, and who believed we may be back on to the pre-War scale in a very few years. We have got still, however, very substantial War bonuses, and we are giving permanent pensions in which the
bonus is taken into account to people who may live for a quarter of a century, and who may, therefore, for 15 or 20 years enjoy pensions which are quite out of place. I think this is no time to be splashing the taxpayers' money about in this fashion, and although we are willing to support the hon. Gentleman, I do not think we can do it unless we get a pledge that this clear consideration is present to his mind, and that this sort of thing will be stopped now, henceforth, and for ever more. It is perfectly intolerable that when we have got a falling scale of the cost of living, we should go on laying up for 15 or 20 years this entirely unjustifiable burden upon the public. I do not think the hon. Gentleman has really given any satisfactory explanation, and unless he is prepared to give us a pledge that, in view of the review which has been made by the Geddes Committee, and the strongly-expressed opinion of every Member who has addressed the Committee this evening, he will stop this sort of thing, I shall feel myself forced to join those who go into the Division Lobby against him.

Mr. N. MACLEAN: I take exception to the Estimate on account of the lack of information that it gives us as to the class of individuals to whom these superannuation allowances and gratuities have to be paid. I also take exception to it on the ground of the amount that the Committee is asked to vote away. To be asked to vote away a sum relating to additional allowances and gratuities that is greater than the sum that was originally estimated for by the Government is, to say the least of it, very bad management on the part of the Treasury. It may, of course, be advanced on their behalf that they could not foresee the large number of people who would take advantage of the pension scheme which, seemingly, it had suddenly dawned upon those people, was also to include a pension upon the bonus. The Government of this country, speaking and acting on behalf of the people of this country, ought to be the last to break any pledge that they have made to any class of servant they have working for the community, but I have yet to learn that this House was told at any time that the bonuses which were to be given, and the bonuses that had been given, to civil servants in order
to compensate them for the increased cost of living were to be looked upon as something on which pension would also accrue.
So far as I am concerned—and I think I can speak with a fairly wide experience of industrial matters—there is no industrial firm in the country that has a superannuation scheme in operation for its employés, and that had during the War to give those employés increased wages to meet the increased cost of living, that has not been compelled to bring down the wages, with the natural result that if they retire at the present time it will be on a much lower superannuation allowance. The bonuses are not taken into account by those firms in assessing the retirement allowance. The bonus is given for a specific purpose. When that purpose ceases to obtain, the bonus should disappear, but, even although the circumstances should still remain that would necessitate the payment of a part of that bonus in order to compensate for the increased expenditure, would that bonus be taken into account by any firm in this country in assessing the superannuation allowance? The Government appointed five brainy men to bring down the expenditure of the country, and yet the Government come forward seven days after the publication of their Report asking the House to give them a larger sum of money than they asked in the original Estimate. And they say they have a desire to economise!
I should like to ask the Financial Secretary to the Treasury to how many individuals in the Civil Service does this additional superannuation allowance apply? It may be 1, or it may be 100,000. It is concealed from us. It is not shown in the statement in our hands. We have a right to know when we are being asked to vote the money to these people, for how many people we are voting the money. That information is withheld from us, and we are asked to go into the Lobby behind the Government to give them this sum. I have gone to the trouble of getting the original estimate. I find even there the most meagre details. In order to find particulars of how the money is to be allocated, we must go into the Library and take out Acts of Parliament and trace them back as far as 1854 to find out the purposes to which the money is being voted. I think
it is time this Government should be taught a lesson by the Members of this House. They have been preached to from all sides. The hon. Member who preceded me said he was quite willing to support the Government if they could justify the case. That sort of thing is so often said, and they can always justify their case in such a way that they draw the wool over the eyes of their supporters. Hon. Members on the other side threaten again and again what they are going to do unless the Government climb down. In the end, however, we find it is they who have climbed clown. I am not asking for a vote against. the Government. But if the hon. Members who moved the reduction are prepared to carry it to a Division I, for one, am prepared to go into the Lobby with them at once. I want to pull the Government down—though I would not do it for that purpose alone willingly—but because I wish this House to be in possession of facts that I think we have a right to know. We ought to know the full facts upon which we are to be asked to vote away money so that when we go before our people we can explain the votes we have given in this House, and the purposes for which the money is to be spent by the Government.

Mr. HOGGE: It is a very short point I desire to be assured upon before I support, or otherwise, the Supplementary Estimate. There are two classes of men who have been affected by the cost of living. There is the civil servant that we are asked to supply this extra money for, and there is the discharged soldier and sailor who did the actual fighting for us. If I remember rightly, in April, 1917, we had what was then known as the Barnes Warrant, and from the issue of that Warrant until 1919, when the Select Committee on Pensions reported with regard to a disability pension being paid to discharged men, there was no increase in the amount of pension paid so far as the cost of living went. In 1919 the disablement pension for the fighting services was raised to meet the increased cost of living, in the exact percentage of the figure of, I think, 110 per cent. The Government at that moment refused to accept the recommendation of the Select Committee to review the pensions of the disabled men from year to year in accordance with the cost of living as it went up and down—and it went up as
high as 170 per cent. The Government said: "We will not review these pensions until April, 1923."
I want the House to bear in mind that fact, in contrast to what hon. Members are now asked to vote. You cannot deny the fact that the man who fought for us did infinitely more than any man who remained at home. Everybody agrees to that. But the men who fought for us are getting less increase and no chance of retirement on a basis of this kind, and are not even having their pensions revised yearly according to the increased cost of living. Yet you have here civil servants, with good pay, security, good holidays, and good pensions, who are moving out of the country's service and taking advantage of the war bonuses to which they are not entitled. I hope every Member of the House who, over and over again in my hearing, has spoken of the debt we owe to the men who fought for us, will bear in mind, if they vote this money for civil servants who did not fight and did not put up with sacrifices, that he is doing an injury to other men, and an injustice to the taxpayer who is asked to contribute the money.

Mr. FILDES: The point I wish to emphasise is that apparently the position the Government take up is difficult to justify from *he point of view that we have been inviting the working classes of this country, the mining industry in particular, to increase their output in order to decrease the cost of living. I think that is going to be a particularly difficult thing to justify in the country when we find that the Government are prepared to let a considerable number of civil servants to go out of the service of the country with a pension on the basis that the cost of living is going to remain at its present level for years to come. I hope the hon. Gentleman will be able to give us some assurance that this indefensible procedure is not going to be persisted in. With the information before me, I cannot see my way to vote for such a proposal.

Sir F. BANBURY: May I put one question? I understood the Financial Secretary to the Treasury to say that this right to the pension was conferred by Statute. When he was asked to give the date of the Statute he replied, "About 1909." That is what we want to know. We want to know the date of the Statute
which he says gives power to add the bonus to the salary, and to found the pension upon the salary plus the bonus.

Mr. YOUNG: There seems to be some misapprehension upon that point. The question asked me related to the one-thirtieth for the additional allowance of the lump sum.

Sir F. BANBURY: We did not mean that.

Mr. YOUNG: The arrangement made for the payment of the bonus does not rest upon Statute, but upon an agreement arrived at with the National Whitley Council.

Sir D. MACLEAN: In the opening statement which I made, I put it to the Financial Secretary that the basis upon which they granted the War bonus and the basis upon which they thought they were entitled to bring the War bonus in was the use of the word "emolument." I quoted the Statute at the time, and I put it that the War bonus was another interpretation included in the word "emolument." I said that I thought it was not a proper use of the word to apply it to a temporary arrangement.

Mr. YOUNG: I am much obliged to my right hon. Friend. I think we have now arrived at an explanation as to how the two views stand. The first view is that the pension is based upon 75 per cent. of the bonus at the time of retirement. The position, as I ventured to put it before the Committee in my opening observations, was this, that under the Statutes a civil servant on retirement is entitled to be pensioned on his emoluments. What is based on the agreement with the National Whitley Council is not that general right to be pensioned on his emoluments, but on a figure of 75 per cent. at which the war bonus is appraised for pension. It is my contention that the right of the civil servant to be pensioned upon his war bonus is a statutory right, because the only reasonable interpretation of the word "emolument" in the Statute must be taken to include the war bonus. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no!"] I would quite agree with these hon. Members who have dissented if the war bonus had been a casual payment, but I also suggest to the Committee that to take that view as regards
the war bonus in the state in which it has been for some time would be too narrow an interpretation. The reasonable thing is to say that it having been paid now for some years, and as it is certain it will have to be paid for some substantial time to come, it is only equitable to say that the war bonus is practically an emolument of the civil servant.
I do not think that justice has been done by some of my critics to the provision made in the actual scheme by the agreement with the National Whitley Council. It has been said how unfair it is that the pension should not come down with the decrease in the cost of living. Very briefly I went into that in my opening observations. The reason was this, that it was thought unpracticable and unnecessarily expensive and unfair to the pensioners to give them a variable pension. It has been said it is not more expensive to reassess the pensions than to reassess the salaries of civil servants. But that does not take into account the actual fact that, whereas the reassessment of salaries can be by large classes, owing to the way in which pensions are calculated practically no two pensions are the same. The elements which constitute the pension differ, and the calculations Which would be necessary in order to bring the pensions into line with the cost of living would be laborious and different in each case. Let me add I am not sure it is fully appreciated by the Committee that in the present scheme account has been taken of the fall in the cost of living, because under the contention I have advanced the pensioner was entitled under the law to be pensioned on his full emoluments, which would represent 100 per cent. of the War bonus. That was reduced by 25 per cent., and he is pensioned only on 75 per cent. The effect was to discount the fall in the cost of living, allowing for its fall by about 50 per cent. below the level at the date of retirement. I think that it ought to be clearly appreciated by everyone who wants to pass a fair judgment upon the effect of the scheme, that the effect of the fall in the cost of living has actually been discounted to the extent of allowing for its fall to 50 per cent. above the pre-War figure. It has been said that the nation is being fixed with a charge in perpetuity
in respect of a temporary emolument, Indeed that is not so. This fall is discounted, and let me remind the Committee that you are dealing here with a class of persons advanced in years. These pensioners die off, in some cases, with great rapidity. I do not know what is the average age of retirement. It is about 60, but in many cases retirement does not take place till the age of 65, and the charges are short-lived. I cannot but think that an unduly optimistic view as to the prospects in connection with the cost of living was taken by my right hon. Friend and others, who threw out the possibility of its falling, in the immediate or near future, as low as 25 per cent. above the pre-War level. Nothing seems to me more improbable, and nothing seems to me more fair than the contention that in discounting the fall as we have done we have taken a very fair figure.
Let me now try to deal with one or two other questions that were put to me in the course of the discussion. The medical referees about whom the hon. Baronet the Member for East Nottingham (Sir J. D. Rees) was troubled, are not those to whom he referred with so much criticism. They are three special referees, who receive very small fees, and, as I mentioned at the time, nothing in any case is taken for them in this Supplementary Estimate. My right hon. Friend the Member for Peebles asked certain questions. He asked me, in effect, how many of the civil servants dealt with in this Estimate retired voluntarily, and how many were retired under retrenchment. If I may say so, that exhibits, though very naturally, a little misconception of the position. All these retirements with which we are dealing are, as I sought to explain in my opening observations, normal retirements, either at the age of 60 or through ill-health. The situation is that after 60 a man can retire on pension unless the head of his Department requires him to remain, so that it would be indeed impossible to distinguish between those retiring voluntarily and those retiring compulsorily under retrenchment. As a matter of fact, the large majority of cases would be of this nature, that your men would retire voluntarily, and would be allowed to retire by the head of their Department, but it is not possible to make any classification. My right hon. Friend the Mem-
ber for Peebles, the hon. Member for Lichfield (Sir C. Warner), and also the hon. Member for Govan (Mr. N. Maclean) desired to know what range of salaries was covered by this Estimate, and some rather severe strictures were passed upon me for presenting the Estimate without those figures. Let me observe that in doing so I have merely followed what has been for a long time the customary form of Supplementary Estimates.

Mr. N. MACLEAN: It is a bad custom.

Mr. YOUNG: The presentation of the Estimates in the customary way should not, at any rate, subject the Government to any charge of deliberate desire to conceal information from the House.

Mr. MACLEAN: I was not charging the Government with any such desire. I took exception to the manner in which the Estimate was presented, which I think is the right of every Member of the House. Whether it is customary or not is immaterial; Members have a perfect right to criticise the form, even though the custom be a bad one.

Mr. YOUNG: Of course, I accept. the hon. Member's explanation. I have no doubt that I misunderstood the emphasis of his remarks. I fear that, as the actual information which he seeks is of a detailed nature., I cannot give it on the spur of the moment. I fear, also, that to give accurate statistics of all the civil servants covered by this Estimate would entail a laborious inquiry through very many offices. I will consider the matter and see whether such figures as those asked for by my right hon. Friend, of increases over £500, can be obtained without what would. be an undue expenditure of time and money. I would, however, make this clear to hon. Members beyond all possibility of controversy that by far the larger number of the civil servants referred to in this Estimate—and only a small percentage of the money is provided in this Estimate for these services—are the civil servants in the lower grades, the small men in the Post Office, and so on; the men on small salaries. The first division civil servants with the higher salaries, above £500, would only account for a very small percentage indeed of the Estimate
I was asked by the hon. Member for Central Aberdeen (Major M. Wood) whether there had not been an acceleration of retirement to take advantage of the higher bonus. Undoubtedly, as I think I mentioned in my brief opening statement, the effect of the bonus has been to promote retirement. I cannot give him the figures to which he referred, at any rate at, the moment, but certainly, for instance in the quarter before September, the number of retirements would have been greater than in the preceding quarter. That has worked fortunately by accelerating promotion, and in that sense it has facilitated those schemes of retrenchment and reorganisation which the Government desire to carry out. The hon. Member for Wood Green (Mr. G. Locker-Lampson) asked whether actuarial advice had been taken and certain calculations made as regards, if I understand him rightly, the inclusion of part of the bonus in the assessment of pensions. The calculations to which he refers were undoubtedly made. I should not agree with him that they were what you would technically call actuarial calculations. Special actuarial skill would not be necessary to make such calculations, but the calculations which he considers necessary were undoubtedly made at the time of those changes by the Treasury, though in fact they did not pass the actuarial skill which is available amongst the officials at the Treasury.
I would refer, in a single word, to an element in this Supplementary Estimate to which I alluded in my opening observations. This Supplementary Estimate must be looked upon in close connection with the question of economy and reform. Where economy depends to a large extent upon reductions of personnel you cannot get the economies you want without. an increase of non-effective charges. Owing to the form of our Estimates we cannot show you here the economies against which this increase of the non-effective charges stands, nevertheless they are there. They will tell in the Estimates for next year. I have given some account of why I have been unable, though I have sought, to give to the Committee on this occasion an estimate of the actual savings in this general Civil Service Vote. On the Customs Vote I can make a calculation; the saving will be £150,000
here. You must have increases in non-effective charges if you are to effect economies by reduction of personnel. Let. me deal with the pledge to which my hon. Friend has just referred. As I understand it, it is that the Government are pledged to insist on economy.

Mr. A. SHAW: The votes of some of us depend on this, and in order that there may be no misunderstanding I say that it is a matter of some importance that the House should be treated with seriousness and not be fobbed off with pretences. The pledge I asked for is this: If the hon. and gallant Gentleman admits that it is unsound to base a pension which may last a quarter of a century on what has arisen out of the particular circumstances of the moment, will he say that the Government are prepared to stop this sort of thing in future? Leaving out of account present and past pensions will the Government in future make it a condition of the grant of such pensions that there shall be some method of reducing them in accordance with the fall in the cost of living, just as other classes in the country are affected?

Mr. YOUNG: I freely agree with my hon. Friend that to base a permanent pension on a temporary decreased increment with a bonus would be absolutely unsound finance. My argument would

show that we have reasonably discounted the approaching fall with the bonus. It is unsound finance to base a permanent charge, by way of pension, on a temporary increase. I am certainly in entire agreement with my hon. Friend on that.

Sir D. MACLEAN: I am sorry that I shall feel compelled to vote for the Amendment. The pledge required was that this shall stop. I have been looking at Section 1, Sub-section (2) of the Superannuation Act of 1909, and it reads as follows:
(2) The Treasury may grant by way of additional allowance to any such civil servant who retires after having served for not less than two years, in addition to the superannuation allowance (if any) to which he may become entitled or the gratuity (if any) which may be granted to him under Section six of the Superannuation Act, 1859, a lump sum equal to one-thirtieth of the annual salary and the emoluments of his office multiplied by the number of completed years he has served, so however that the additional allowance shall in no case exceed one and a half times the amount of such salary and emoluments.
Though I do not like doing it, I am compelled to vote for the Amendment.

Question put, "That a sum, not exceeding £355,000, be granted for the said Service."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 39; Noes, 121.

Division No. 9.]
AYES.
[11.0 p.m.


Banbury, Rt. Hon. Sir Frederick G.
Locker-Lampson, G. (Wood Green)
Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton, E.)


Benn, Captain Wedgwood (Leith)
Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)
Waddington, R.


Bruton, Sir James
Maclean, Rt. Hon. Sir D. (Midlothian)
Warner, sir T. Courtenay T.


Casey, T. W.
McMicking, Major Gilbert
White, Charles F. (Derby, Western)


Cautley, Henry Strother
Mallalieu, Frederick William
Williams, Aneurin (Durham, Consett)


Entwistle, Major C. F.
Mosley, Oswald
Williams, C. (Tavistock)


Fildes, Henry
Murray, Hon. A. C. (Aberdeen)
Williams, Col. P. (Middlesbrough, E.)


Galbraith, Samuel
Nicholson, Brig.-Gen. J. (Westminster)
Wilson, Rt. Hon. J. W. (Stourbridge)


Hogge, James Myles
Roberts, Samuel (Hereford, Hereford)
Wise, Frederick


Holmes, J. Stanley
Robinson, S. (Brecon and Radnor)
Wood, Major M. M. (Aberdeen, C.)


Jones, G. W. H. (Stoke Newington)
Rodger, A. K.
Young, Sir Frederick W. (Swindon)


Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)
Shaw, William T. (Forfar)



Kenyon, Barnet
Sykes, Sir Charles (Huddersfield)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr.


Lawson, John James
Thomson, T. (Middlesbrough, West)
E. Harmsworth and Mr. A. Shaw.


NOES.


Agg-Gardner, St. James Tynte
Carr, W. Theodore
Falcon, Captain Michael


Ainsworth, Captals Charles
Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. A. (Birm. W.)
Flannery, Sir James Fortescue


Astbury, Lieut.-Com. Frederick W.
Clough, Sir Robert
Ford, Patrick Johnston


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Coats, Sir Stuart
Forestier-Walker, L.


Banner, Sir John S. Harmood-
Colvin, Brig. General Richard Beale
Fraser, Major Sir Keith


Barlow, Sir Montague
Conway, Sir W. Martin
Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.


Barnett, Major Richard W.
Coote, Colin Keith (Isle of Ely)
Gee, Captain Robert


Barnston, Major Harry
Cope, Major William
Gibbs, Colonel George Abraham


Bartley-Denniss, Sir Edmund Robert
Davidson, J. C. C.(Hemet Hempstead)
Gilmour, Lieut-Colonel Sir John


Birchall, J. Dearman
Doyle, N. Grattan
Glyn, Major Ralph


Bowyer, Captain G. W. E
Ednam, Viscount
Green, Albert (Derby)


Breese, Major Charles E.
Edwards, Major J. (Aberavon)
Green, Joseph F. (Leicester, W.)


Bridgeman, Rt, Hon. William Clive
Elliot, Capt. Walter E. [Lanark)
Guest, Capt. Rt. Hon. Frederick E.


Broad, Thomas Tucker
Elveden, Viscount
Hacking, Captain Douglas H.


Buckley, Lieut.-Colonel A.
Evans, Ernest
Hallwood, Augustine


Burgoyne, Lt.-Col. Alan Hughes
Eyres-Monsell, Com. Bolton M.
Hancock, John George


Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Middlebrook, Sir William
Scott, A. M. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)


Harmsworth, C. S. (Bedford, Luton)
Mitchell, Sir William Lane
Seager, Sir William


Henderson, Lt.-Col. V. L. (Tradeston)
Molson, Major John Elsdale
Sexton, James


Hood, Sir Joseph
Moreing, Captain Algernon H.
Shortt, Rt. Hon. E. (N'castle-on-T.)


Hope, Sir H.(Stirling & Cl'ckm'nn, W.)
Munro, Rt. Hon. Robert
Stanley, Major Hon. G. (Preston)


Hopkins, John W. W.
Murray, John (Leeds, West)
Stophenson, Lieut.-Colonel H. K.


Hopkinson, A. (Lancaster, Mossley)
Murray, William (Dumfries)
Strauss, Edward Anthony


Hudson, R. M.
Neal, Arthur
Sturrock, J. Leng


Hurst, Lieut.-Colonel Gerald B.
Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)
Sugden, W. H.


Inskip, Thomas Walker H.
Parry, Lieut.-Colonel Thomas Henry
Sutherland, Sir William


Jephcott, A. R.
Pease, Rt. Hon. Herbert Pike
Taylor, J.


Johnson, Sir Stanley
Perkins, Walter Frank
Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)


Jones, J. T. (Carmarthen, Llanelly)
Pickering, Colonel Emil W.
Thomson, Sir W. Mitchell- (Maryhill)


Kellaway, Rt. Hon. Fredk. George
Pollock, Rt. Hon. Sir Ernest Murray
Thorpe, Captain John Henry


Kidd, James
Pownall, Lieut.-Colonel Assheton
Tryon, Major George Clement


King, Captain Henry Douglas
Pratt, John William
Wallace, J.


Larmor, Sir Joseph
Prescott, Major Sir W. H.
Walters, Rt. Hon. Sir John Tudor


Law, Alfred J. (Rochdale)
Purchase, H. G.
Weston, Colonel John Wakefield


Lewis, Rt. Hon. J. H. (Univ., Wales)
Randies, Sir John Scurrah
Wheler, Col. Granville C. H.


Lewis, T. A. (Glam., Pontypridd)
Rankin, Captain James Stuart
Whitia, Sir William


Lloyd-Greame, Sir P.
Rees, Sir J. D. (Nottingham, East)
Young, E. H. (Norwich)


Locker-Lampson, Com. O. (H'tlngd'n)
Remer, J. R.
Young, Robert (Lancaster, Newton)


Lort-Williams, J.
Renwick, Sir George



Loseby, Captain C. E.
Royds, Lieut.-Colonel Edmund
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


McCurdy, Rt. Hon. Charles A.
Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)
Colonel Leslie Wilson and Mr.


Meysey-Thompson, Lieut.-Col. E. C.
Sanders, Colonel Sir Robert Arthur
Dudley Ward.


Question put, and agreed to.

Resolution to be reported To-morrow; Committee to sit again To-morrow.

PUBLICATIONS AND DEBATES' REPORTS.

Ordered, "That a Select Committee be appointed to assist Mr. Speaker in the arrangements for the Official Report of Debates, and to inquire into the expenditure on Stationery and Printing for this House and the public service generally.

Lieutenant-Colonel Archer-Shee, Sir Rowland Blades, Mr. Bowerman, Major Cope, Viscount Ednam, Mr. Hugh Edwards, Major Entwistle, Mr. Howard Gritten, Sir Charles Higham, Sir Thomas Polson, and Mr. Sturrock nominated members of the Committee."

Ordered, "That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers, and records."

Ordered, "That Three be the quorum."—[Colonel Gibbs.]

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

LEITH DOCKS.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Colonel Leslie Wilson.]

Captain WEDGWOOD BENN: I desire to draw attention to a matter of unemployment which touches a very large public body in the constituency which I
have the honour to represent. In the Debate on unemployment about four days ago, the Minister of Labour (Dr. Macnamara) explained that the Government were very anxious to do everything in their power to find public works of the substantial nature which would justify them in making grants from the special funds for the purpose of giving employment to some of the large number of men who are out of work at the present time. It is of such a work that I wish to speak.
I would remind the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. Neal) that, although for some time I have been in correspondence with him and other Departments in reference to this work, namely, an extension of the Leith docks, I have met with no satisfactory answer. I have been with every Department, but, unfortunately, whatever their wishes, they were unable to help in this matter. A little later I received a very courteous letter from the hon. Gentleman, asking me if I could bring to the notice of the Dock Commissioners the need for finding work in order to give employment to unemployed men, and asking me to remind them that they should apply to the Government Committee set up for this purpose. Of course, I responded immediately to the letter which he was good enough to send me. I communicated with the Clerk of the Commissioners, and they, in their turn, laid before the Government a plan of the extension of the docks which was of so substantial and satisfactory a character, and so full of promise of success that it has already received Parliamentary sanction. It was a plan for extending the prosperous docks of
Leith a little further to the west, taking in a large space of water which at present is part of the Firth of Forth.
My first point is that this is the class of work from which the most satisfactory result can be effected. It is not in any sense a relief work, invented for the purpose of giving work. We know from experience of unemployment committees in the past in providing relief works that work has been invented which work did not represent the amount expended upon it in capital and labour. This is not a work of that kind. At the moment it could not possibly pay for itself, but in the future it will redound financially to the benefit of those who use this trade entrance to Scotland. Then a nice question arose. The hon. Gentleman was good enough to receive a reputation consisting of the Lord Provost, I think, and the Chairman and Clerk of the Dock Commissioners. A nice point arises as into what category this work would fall. The Government were making promises under two classes, one on a liberal scale to non-revenue-producing bodies, and the other on a less liberal scale to revenue-producing bodies. I admit it is a nice question as to whether a statutory dock authority comes under the category of revenue-producing or non-revenue producing bodies. If it is only to get the assistance which comes to the revenue-producing authorities it is impossible for this extension to proceed.
The financial advice on which this authority acts is of the best. It is so substantial and so wisely managed that as financial credit stands high, and this advice says it is impossible to put this extension in hand at the present time if it were only to receive assistance on a revenue-producing basis. If, on the other hand, the hon. Gentleman says tonight that the Government is able to assist them on the non-revenue-producing basis, then this extension can be put in hand, and some employment found for men in that district. On this point as to whether it is revenue-producing or non-revenue-producing I will make three brief observations. This body cannot make a profit. The most it can do is to pay a dividend on money borrowed. If they make anything in ex-
cess of that, it must be spent on public work, on the extension of their own docks; or else it must be used for the reduction of rates. The people who benefit by the reduction of dock rates are not the persons who trade in the docks. They are the general consumers in the country, and I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that there is a fair comparison to be drawn between a publicly-owned and managed dock of this kind, and a public highway which, of course, has revenue in the sense that it has rates, or a lighthouse which has revenue in the sense that it has dues and tolls. The hon. Gentleman would not maintain that a highway or a lighthouse is a revenue-producing class of public works. Moreover, part of this particular work, the construction of a breakwater, which is a preliminary, and would give a great deal of employment to non-skilled labour, would produce no revenue at all. It is impossible for it to produce, either now or in the future, any revenue.
I urge the hon. Gentleman either to concede the whole request, or at least to concede the request of the Commissioners as regards the breakwater. That should be regarded as non-revenue-producing. I observe the Mersey Dock authority, when they applied, were not told they could not have the money because they were revenue-producing, but were told they could not have the money because there was no money. That was not the case made by the Minister of Labour. He said: "Show us the work, and we will find the money." While thanking the House for permitting me to raise the matter, I urge on the. hon. Gentleman that it is highly desirable he should concede this point about which I admit there may be some possibility of argument, and place the Leith Dock Commissioners and other dock commissioners in the category of non-revenue-producing authorities for the purposes of the grant which the Government is making to relieve unemployment.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of TRANSPORT (Mr. Neal): My hon. and gallant Friend has stated his case with his usual force and lucidity, but if I may say so with respect he has just a little confused the terms "revenue earning" and "profit earning." They are not convertible terms. But the facts of the case as they were represented to me by the deputation
which my hon. and gallant Friend refers to were these: The dock authority at Leith, which is a statutory authority but which has no power to make a private profit, has an undertaking which cost in the region of £2,750,000, and its indebtedness at the moment is in the region of £800,000. Their credit is extremely good—so good, in fact, that in the open money market they are able to raise loans for their purposes at a rate not higher than that at which the Government is able to obtain money. The proposed work was a minor work, calculated to cost about £200,000. Therefore, it is quite plain that that work is well within the financial resources of the authority itself, and I must express my personal regret that the authority and the adjoining corporation, which was represented at the interview referred to, has not seen its way to undertake the work. It was, in fact, the making of an outer sea defence, which would enable land to be reclaimed, and warehouses and other buildings to be built in the future.
This work, the making of an outer sea defence, never could, by itself, earn money, but as a part of the larger project for the extension of the dock undertaking, the reclamation of land, and the erection of buildings, it is a part of a revenue-earning undertaking which is by no means in an impecunious condition, and which is quite able within its own resources to undertake this small work. I ventured to urge upon the notice of the deputation that the condition of em-
ployment in the district was such that the matter was one to which I hoped they would be able to give favourable consideration.
The matter, however, does not rest with the Ministry of Transport. The funds which are available are being administered under the guidance of the Committee presided over by Lord St. Davids, and that Committee makes grants of two kinds, namely, 50 per cent. of the interest for a term of 5 years on works which are revenue-producing, and 65 per cent. of interest and sinking fund in respect of works which are not revenue-producing for half the loan period, suck half not exceeding 15 years. I understand from Lord St. Davids Committee that an application was launched before then by the Commissioners for assistance in the matter, and that Committee, acting under a general decision of the Government, could come to no other conclusion than that this work came within the category of revenue-earning work Therefore the only offer which they would be able to make to the Leith Harbour Commissioners would be to pay for a period of 5 years half their interest charges. I am extremely sorry that they have not seen their way to put this little public work in hand, and find some relief for some of the unemployed in the district.

Adjourned accordingly at Twenty-five Minutes after Eleven o'Clock.